'in 
 
 Mm w 
 
 iiiii
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 mmslTf Of CALIFORNIA 
 
 RIVERSIDE
 

 
 LAST LEAVES. 
 
 SKETCHES AND CRITICISMS, 
 
 BY 
 
 ALEXANDER SMITH, 
 
 AUTHOR or " A LIFE-DRAMA," " DREAMTHORP," ETC. ETC. 
 
 Edited, with a Wemoir, by 
 PATRICK PROCTOR ALEXANDER, M.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF " MILL AND CARLYLE," ETC. ETC. 
 
 EDINBURGH: 
 WILLIAM P. NIMMO. 
 
 1868.
 
 5 5^37
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 Memoir, . . . . 
 
 Scottish Ballads, 
 
 An Essay on an Old Subject, 
 
 On Dreams and Dreaming, . 
 
 Mr Carlyle at Edinburgh, 
 
 Winter, 
 
 Literary Work, . 
 
 The Minister-Pai^stter, 
 
 Sydney Dobell, 
 
 Essayists, Old and New, 
 
 A Spring Chanson, 
 
 Edinburgh, . 
 
 Appendix, 
 
 I 
 
 64 
 80 
 
 93 
 112 
 
 126 
 
 140 
 
 171 
 210 
 
 300 
 .^06 
 
 315
 
 V/,>-o 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 N superintending the issue of this selec- 
 tion from the Essays of my friend, the 
 late Alexander Smith, it has fallen to 
 me to write, as Preface to it, some little account 
 of him as he lived. It is a task which I would 
 willingly have declined, as knowing its extreme 
 delicacy ; also, as well knowing that I shall not 
 succeed in doing it as I myself should wish to 
 see it done. Not the less, on other grounds, I 
 am frankly willing, and, in some sort of sad 
 fashion, pleased, "to do the best I may in the 
 matter. What I have to write I shall write very 
 simply as it is given me, believing that that will 
 be best ; except as I should be sorry indeed that 
 the book or the memory of the man should suffer 
 through any hetiseoi mine, not too curiously con- 
 cerned, as I proceed, as to what may be thought 
 
 of my performance, and especially indifferent 
 
 A I
 
 vi MEMOIR. 
 
 to possible charges against it, in parts, of the 
 egotis7n which, I trust, will be seen to be pretty- 
 much in the nature of the task itself, as I con- 
 ceive it. 
 
 Alexander Smith was born at Kilmarnock, in 
 Ayrshire, on the 31st December 1829. He was 
 the eldest born of his parents — excellent people 
 both, who lived to take just pride in the world's 
 recognition of his genius, and, more lately, to 
 have life saddened for them by his too early 
 death. Some few years after, the family re- 
 moved to Paisley, and thence, in a short ti me, 
 to Glasgow. Of the education which he there 
 received it seems scarcely necessary to say any- 
 thing. I should suppose it to have been a fairly 
 good one, including, as it did, with the three 
 indispensable R's, some tincture of Latin and 
 mathematics. His knowledge of these two 
 latter branches he did not much air in his later 
 time ; perhaps because he really knew them ; 
 more probably, because he had forgotten them 
 as completely as if for some years of his life he 
 had studied them diligently at a University. 
 Properly, his education may perhaps have 
 amounted to this, that he was thoroughly well 
 taught to read ; and — the key thus put into his
 
 MEMOIR. vii 
 
 hands which unlocks all the wards of knowledge 
 — ^he proceeded to make pretty good use of it. 
 With a fair round of general information, taken 
 on his own special topics of English poetry and 
 the Belles Lettres — English literature, I may say, 
 in extenso — he was always to be held, as it 
 seemed to me, an unusually well-read man, 
 even among men professedly literary. 
 
 The boy early gave evidence of talent ; and, 
 at one time, it was proposed to educate him for 
 the ministry. It is, perhaps, no mighty matter 
 of regret that this project, for some reason or 
 other, was abandoned. Undoubtedly, as a 
 parson, he would have been much beloved by 
 his parishioners ; but there seems no special 
 reason to suppose he would have shone as a 
 pulpit orator. He would scarcely have written 
 the " Life Drama," or writing, could scarcely 
 have published it ; and, instead of " Dream- 
 thorp," etc., the world might perhaps have been 
 favoured with some volumes of dull discourses, 
 which would not, by comparison, have enriched 
 it. Mr Smith, senior, was a pattern-designer ; 
 and by this accident, as I imagine, rather than 
 any special leaning or aptitude that way, the 
 junior was determined to the same employment.
 
 viii MEMOIR. 
 
 If — as he used to tell — great part of his early 
 poetry was composed by him over his work, it 
 may be surmised that the design, taking shape 
 under the hand, would not exceedingly profit 
 by that intense pre-occupation of the head. In 
 after life, he was never, that I heard of, known 
 to touch a pencil ; a fact which, of itself, may be 
 held conclusive, as showing that, in his choice of 
 a pursuit, he was ruled by no depth of natural 
 tendency. Still, the designs — such as they 
 might be — were, no doubt with perfect regu- 
 larity, produced ; and, along with them, much 
 of the poetry which afterwards, as the " Life 
 Drama," became famous. Certain of his verses 
 appeared from time to time in the Glasgow 
 Citizen, edited by Mr James Hedderwick, a man 
 of the nicest literary taste, "an accomplished 
 journalist, and poet of no mean order,"* with 
 whom he was thus brought into friendly relations. 
 Naturally, however, the "Poet's Corner," after his 
 first flush of young fool's delight in seeing himself 
 actually in print, came to seem to him a some- 
 what restricted field ; and, with a view to a wider 
 publicity, early in 185 1, he forwarded a selec- 
 
 Summer in Skye," A. Smith.
 
 MEMOIR. ix 
 
 tion of his pieces to the Rev. Mr George Gil- 
 fillan of Dundee, asking his opinion and advice. 
 From Mr Gilfillan he had instant and generous 
 recognition ; and shortly, through his kindly- 
 furtherance, the poems began to appear, by 
 regular instalments, in the London Critic, a jour- 
 nal then of wide circulation, with which he was 
 connected as contributor. There and elsewhere, 
 moreover, he expressed, in no stinted terms of 
 eulogy, his sense of the power and promise of 
 the " New Poet " he had thus had the luck to 
 unearth. That in the first instance, and as gain- 
 ing him the ear of the public on the instant, Mr 
 Gilfillan was of much use to Smith, he him- 
 self, as the last man in the world to forget a 
 true kindness done him, always continued to 
 acknowledge. 
 
 The interest excited in London literary circles 
 by the poetry, as it thus appeared, was some- 
 thing quite unusual ; and — as then living in 
 Glasgow — I very well remember the curious 
 speculation which was rife as to wliat kind of 
 strange bird this might be, beginning so to pipe 
 in our midst. Soon, through his friend Mr 
 Hedderwick, who asked me to meet him of an 
 evening, I had the pleasure of making his ac-
 
 X MEMOIR. 
 
 quaintance. Considering his youth, and the 
 somewhat exuberant cast of the poetry, I con- 
 fess I expected to meet a more or less flighty 
 kind of blockhead, whose gyrations in the direc- 
 tion of the Empyrean it might be not unamusing 
 to watch. With a considerable shock of sur- 
 prise, and possibly — the amusement being looked 
 to — of something very like disappointment, I 
 found myself face to face with one of the most 
 simple, quiet, modest, and unassuming of men. 
 He did not gyrate in the least, and seemed to 
 indicate, indeed, an entire, and even helpless, 
 incapacity for that kind of performance. He 
 did not speak overmuch ; rather showed a con- 
 siderable talent for silence, which — except in 
 the entire unreserve of intimacy, not even in 
 which was he wont to be specially voluble — he 
 continued through life to cultivate. Anything 
 he did say was closely pertinent to the matter 
 in hand— plain, shrewd, sensible. What, at first 
 meeting, struck me as remarkable about him, 
 besides this unexpected quiet sense and solidity, 
 was his forehead, which really, I think, was re- 
 markable — a fine square block of brain, such 
 as I have not often seen the like of, with dark 
 hair massed heavily over it. Otherwise — except
 
 MEMOIR. xi 
 
 for something of a squint, a little startling at 
 first, but which afterward you would not have 
 wished away — his face, though comely and ex- 
 pressive, was not such as to strongly arrest 
 attention. Afterwards, as the years dealt with 
 him, he changed somewhat in appearance. As 
 he neared middle age, face and figure became 
 fuller, and the first, as the fashion of the day 
 suggested, was improved by a moustache and 
 an ample beard, brown in colour, and of almost 
 exceptionally fine proportions. In himself he 
 changed not a jot ; remaining throughout, and to 
 his last hour, precisely the same simple, quiet, 
 unassuming, undemonstrative man who met me 
 that first evening ; without a suspicion in him 
 of anything like small affectation ; averse in his 
 own person from every form of self-exhibition, 
 and with a humorous and kindly contempt for 
 that vanity as it showed itself in others. This 
 identity was, perhaps, even curious, and of itself 
 might be held to illustrate the truth and sin- 
 cerity of his nature. Most of us may have 
 known people who seemed to us, on the first 
 blush of acquaintance, of something like ideal 
 excellence ; but by and by we found them out : 
 and even if the excellence remained, it shrunk.
 
 xii MEMOIR. 
 
 and seemed more and more short of the ideal 
 at first suggested. The man who has hitherto 
 shone in your eyes as the very soul of easy gene- 
 rosity, is precisely the person who is sure not to 
 have the necessary £^ when you wish to- oblige 
 him by borrowing it. The only certain truth 
 as yet known in ethics is this — that it is good to 
 believe in human virtue, and better still, as a 
 rule, not to test it any way severely. Nobody 
 better than Smith stood the test which is neces- 
 sarily furnished by a long and intimate acquain- 
 tance. He did not in the least strike you as 
 ideal, to start with, but as something very 
 genuine and real ; and more and more you 
 found that \vq. was so. He was eminently ^^^^ 
 wear, so, in some rough and ready way, to 
 phrase it. 
 
 To Smith, as to myself, this evening could 
 not fail to be memorable, if only as for both of 
 us the commencement of intimacy with a most 
 interesting, and, in some distinct sense, remark- 
 able, man, by name Hugh Macdonald. Hugh 
 was one of the be.st and most curious specimens 
 of a class of men which this curious country 
 called Scotland produces, in perhaps somewhat 
 exceptional numbers. The famous "Parochial
 
 MEMOIR. xiii 
 
 System " — now on its last legs, they say — has 
 had something to do in the production of them ; 
 but much more Robert Burns, who has simply, 
 for the humbler grades of the Scottish people, 
 done the work of a legion of schoolmasters. (It 
 is not, of course, to be forgotten that Burns was 
 himself an effect^ and in this relation must figure 
 as rt^/^-cause, rather than accurately cause.) 
 Originally a factory operative, Macdonald had 
 developed himself into a poet {of course, with 
 Burns as the god of his idolatry) ; a naturalist 
 of no ordinary accomplishment, more especially 
 in the branch of botany ; and a writer of really 
 good and eloquent prose,* with, perhaps, just the 
 least little tendency to become at times too 
 eloquent — Burns, perhaps, being his theme, 
 the Osniunda Regalis, or some other of the 
 botanical hobbies on which he was wont to 
 career about with astonishing vigour and en- 
 thusiasm. In virtue of all this, he had come 
 into contact with Mr Hedderwick — to whom, in 
 that metropolis of cotton, anything literary 
 
 * His two books, "Rambles Round Glasgow," and " Days 
 at the Coast," are really, in their kind, of quite superior excel- 
 lence, and, as Guide Books to the whole district, attained a great 
 popularity.
 
 xiv MEMOIR. 
 
 seemed by natural necessity to gravitate — and 
 was at this tin^e employed as his sub-editor. 
 The three of us.going away together, as we did, 
 naturally enough met again at my room the 
 evening after. As the first of many such even- 
 ings, I infer it mu.st have passed, on the whole, 
 pleasantly ; and some sort of comfortable intimacy 
 was pretty rapidly established. Smith had after- 
 wards many friends, and of these an unusual pro- 
 portion, his relations with whom were close, cor- 
 dial, and even to be called endearing ; but scarce 
 any of them was ever his ^^Jo;«-friend (to use an 
 expressive, if somewhat gushing phrase) in such 
 sense as Hugh Macdonald. The two speedily 
 become so inseparable that almost on meeting 
 one of them, you would look about in some 
 puzzled way, as if expecting the other. And the 
 men were so utterly unlike, that there conjunc- 
 tion had in it a positive element of the ludicrous. 
 Macdonald, though born in Glasgow, and essen- 
 tially a Lowland Scot, was a Celt, as his name im- 
 plies, and some portion of his boyhood had been 
 passed among relations in Mull. Though this 
 had left but little trace in him, there could be 
 no mistake about the breed. He had much of 
 the Celtic vividness, vivacity, enthusiasm ; " the
 
 MEMOIR. XV 
 
 flash and outbreak of the fiery mind " was per- 
 petually expressed in his speech, and his various 
 odd modes of procedure. Smit\, on the other 
 hand, fronted the world, as I' said, as quiet an 
 embodiment as may be, of the right Saxon 
 sense, shrewdness, and solidity. The contrast 
 was fundamental ; and at almost every point of 
 detail it was so marked as to make the friendly 
 amalgam of the two amusing, not to say absurd. 
 Most pleasant comrades each apart, together 
 they were really incomparable ; and when I 
 used to expect them of an evening, one or two 
 congenial spirits would probably be asked to 
 drop in. Do ever any of my friends in the West 
 recall these Nodes ccsnasqiie Deoriim ? I should 
 think it not improbable ; for — the omens being 
 reasonably propitious — there could scarcely be 
 better entertainment. Our " Society," whether 
 or no to be held "good" in the paltry, and, 
 perhaps, rather idiotic sense, was as good as 
 any I have seen, or much care to see ; and 
 almost immeasurably better, for any rational 
 purpose of either instruction or delight, than 
 other societies I have seen, which would have 
 been shocked to hear they were considered not 
 quite unimpeachably "good!' By virtue of his
 
 xvi MEMOIR. 
 
 real conversational power, Macdonald, on his 
 own topics, would have shone in any society in 
 which, as thoroughly at home, he felt himself 
 free to develop it. Smith, who had afterwards 
 fair opportunities for testing ability in that kind, 
 used always to say, that for vital force and 
 brilliancy of talk he had not met any one quite 
 equal to "poor Hugh" at his best. (He died 
 some few years after this, but never ceased to 
 be affectionately remembered, and every now 
 and then referred to.*) Also, he had consider- 
 able powers as a vocalist, and held himself 
 frankly ready to sing at a moment's notice. 
 Burns was his general stand-by ; and failing the 
 songs of Burns, he was partial, I think, to his 
 own, which he gave with fine, wild, masterly 
 effect, to any tune or none, as it might chance. 
 Nice connoisseurs among us would hint that 
 generally, in this matter of tune, Hugh was 
 the least thing shaky or so. As myself un- 
 fastidious in such matters, — which Smith most 
 distinctly also was, — I could never rightly see 
 their objection, and rejoiced in the bursting sonl, 
 
 * Some tender reminiscence and account of him will be found 
 in the Glasgow section of Smith's "Summer in Skye."
 
 MEMOIR. xvii 
 
 and genuine lyrical impetuosity of his per- 
 formances. Afterwards, when these nice con- 
 tioisseurs would show us in another company how 
 the thing should scientifically be done, I missed 
 the lyrical impetuosity, and found the science an 
 indifferent substitute. 
 
 But these are by comparison poor and trivial 
 accomplishments. What on such occasions 
 very particularly endeared him to us was this — 
 that, with the warmest affection for Smith, as a 
 man, he combined a resolute contempt for him 
 as Poet, to which he never hesitated to give the 
 very broadest Doric expression.* " I like ye 
 
 * It was one of Hugh's whims, which aided the quaint effect of 
 his conversation, that, though he could speak very good Enghsh, if 
 he Uked, it was a point of honour with him not to do so. Smith, 
 though a good Scot, was never specially to be called Scotch ; he 
 did not, that is, " glory in the name of- Scotchman ;" his love of 
 his country was pretty much like his love for his mother, a feeling 
 to be understood as existing, but with which he did not think it 
 necessary to rush clamorously into the street. He had, more- 
 over, through literature— which in its essence is life— very strong 
 English sympathies ; and even thus early Chaucer was, I think, 
 more eminent with him than Bums, whom yet, of course, he 
 knew most thoroughly. With ^klacdonald, on the other hand, 
 Scotticism was a fiery and irrational passion, which in every 
 way he held himself bound to assert ; and this was one of his 
 ways of doing so. For all English sophistications and refine- 
 ments of what he held to be the primitive speech of mankind,
 
 xviii MEMOIR. 
 
 weel, Sandy," he would say, "an' that ye weel 
 ken ; but as for yer poetry, as ye ca't ! sae help 
 me God! I mak' but little o't. It may be poetry ; 
 I'm no sayin' it is na ; the creetics say it's 
 poetry, an' nae doot tJicy suld ken ; but it's no 
 
 he professed a great abhorence in his friends ; and, for himself, as 
 religiously eschewed them as an Israelite the unclean thing. 
 The words Papa, Mamma, in particular, always comically ex- 
 cited his antipathy ; and they could scarcely be used in his pre- 
 sence without provoking some wild explosion. " Papazf .'" he 
 would say, "mammrtw.'" with as great a length and breadth of 
 scornful emphasis as the broadest Scotch tongue could convey. 
 " What ails ye at faither and mither as ye hae them gi'en ye i' the 
 Scripters ? But folk hae a' gotten sd^tjiine noo, that God's ain 
 Scripter's no guid eneugh for them. Papaif! I scunner to 
 hear't. Lod ! if ony bairn o' mine was to ca w^'papaw, I think I 
 wad jist fent (faint). I daia- them to dae sic a thing!" And so 
 forth. 
 
 If, any time during summer, you chanced to be wandering about 
 Loch Lomond, or any where in the beautiful Highland district 
 which the Firth of Clyde lays open with its branching arms, you 
 were nearly sure to spy on the deck of some steamboat, a quaint 
 little figure in a huge old rusty pilot coat, crowned with a Glen- 
 garry bonnet, jauntily set on one side, in which a considerable 
 sprig of heather was always defiantly stuck, as making a testi- 
 mony to all men. This was Hugh Macdonald on one of his 
 perpetual " Rambles." The sprig of heather, on such occasions, 
 was never in his toilet omitted ; his Scottish dialect he wore 
 somewhat in the same way, at once as ornament, testimony, and 
 defiance. So much in explanation of the savage jargon — as 
 needs it must seem to many readers — he is, in the text, reported 
 as speaking.
 
 MEMOIR. xix 
 
 my kind o' poetry. Jist a blatter o' braw ~^y 
 words, to my mind, an' bit whirly-whas, they 
 
 ca' callages ! Damme if I can mak' either 
 head or tail o't." (With this he invariably con- 
 cluded ; and, in fact, it is not to be denied 
 that the good Hugh shotted his speech at 
 times — a sin, it may be hoped, forgiven him, 
 as never in the list of the deadly ones.) Here, 
 at least, was what could not but commend 
 itself to Smith, as clearly a " candid opinion." 
 It became part of the regular programme, at 
 some time or other of the evening, to skilfully 
 lead the conversation up to a discussion of 
 Smith's claims, when Macdonald never failed 
 in cffixt to deliver himself with trenchant em- 
 phasis as above, however the tune might be 
 played with lively and ingenious variations. 
 Smith seemed always to enjoy quite as heartily 
 as any one else what should have been his own 
 discomfiture ; and shortly after, the two oddly- 
 assorted companions would go off into the night 
 together. 
 
 The truth was that, in his fanatical devotion 
 to Burns, Macdonald could not, except in the 
 most grudging way, be got to concede merit 
 to any other poet whatever ; somewhat as a 
 
 ^
 
 XX 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 knight of old, did his eyes but chance to 
 stray to a rival beauty, might suspect in him- 
 self dereliction, and some dishonour therein 
 done to his own peerless Dulcinea. "Shake- 
 speare ? " he would say, dubitatively ; " Weel- 
 a^weel ! Shakespeare ! Nae doot a vera great 
 poet ! I wadna just ventur to say oor Rabbie * 
 could hae written ' Hawmlet ; ' but there's aye 
 twa ways o' puttin' a thing. Honestly, div 
 ye really think, noo" (with a twinkle in the 
 keen ""rey eye of ironical humour, pre- 
 sumably, more probably of intense convic- 
 tion), " Shakespeare could hae written ' Tain o' 
 ShanterV Dcil the fears d him !'' Shake- 
 speare's superior claims were thus to be con- 
 sidered neutralised, if not entirely disposed of. 
 Lesser and later men were much more per- 
 emptorily set aside. Keats was "a puir bit 
 penny-whustle o' an English cratur ! ' Endee- 
 mion,' say ye t There's naething in't to get a 
 grip o\ I canna get a hand dt, Sandy, ony mair 
 than o' ye, wi' yer whirly-whas. Hech ! but 
 
 • The affectionate diminutive very commonly, in speaking of 
 Bums, in use among the genuine Scotch populations.
 
 MEMOIR. xxi 
 
 it's thin, thin — a bit coloured wab, the like o' 
 whilk amaist ony speeder micht spin, gif ye 
 gie'd it vermeelion i' the guts o't. Nae claith 
 there to clead puir men's backs wi'!" Shelley 
 was "whiles bonny, bonny ; but just clean daft, 
 puir fallow! — a' i' the air, like his ain laverock."* 
 Or again : " O' him ye ca' Wudsworth I hae jist 
 nae opeenion ava. He drank naething a' his life 
 but Lake watter, they say ; an' troth I weel be- 
 liev't ; for little else e'er cam' oot o' him." For 
 Tennyson, his expressed contempt was extreme ; 
 and once — the book being at hand — I remember 
 he effectively illustrated his position by a read- 
 ing of "Airy, fairy Lilian." Working his Scotch 
 with vigour, and carefully emphasising any little 
 points of weakness — for which he had the keenest 
 eye — he produced with much ease a detestable 
 caricature, which nearly made us all expire 
 with laughter. Then, of course, he triumphed : 
 " Laugh awa', lads ! Deed, ye may weel laugh 
 at him. O, but it's wersh, wersh,-!* that kin' o' 
 
 * The allusion is, of course, to Shelley's famous "Sky Lark ;" 
 and generally, it is to be said, that this critic had, at least, been 
 at some pains to read the poets whom he professed to despise. 
 
 + Wersh, an exquisitely-expressive word, of which, as of most 
 of our exceptionally fine Scotch words, there is no exact English 
 
 B 2
 
 xxii MEMOIR. 
 
 thing, to put beside the hke o' Rabbie ! I tell't 
 ye he was nae poet." Finding himself in such 
 excellent company, when under the critical ban, 
 naturally Smith could not have his equanimity 
 much disturbed by Macdonald's abuse of his 
 " whirly-whas." 
 
 equivalent. Tasteless, flavourless, comes perhaps as near it as may 
 be ; but this is itself, by comparison, flavourless. Wcrsh is this, 
 and something more ; giving tlie negative, and, along with it, 
 some quaint sub-insinuation of scorn, half humorous, half dis- 
 gustful. And so of other words of the same kind, e.g. — 
 
 " The cantic auld folks crackitC croitse !" 
 
 (from Burns' "Twa Dogs," of course). An exact ititellecttial 
 equivalent of each of these three words can readily be given in 
 English ; but a mere caput mortuum would thus be substituted 
 for a line, to beat which, in its own class of subject, you may 
 range the poetry of the world. What is a crack in English ? A 
 chat! The synonym is as perfect as possible; yet the words 
 are subtly distinguished from each other by a whole hemisphere 
 of feeling. Achat, by comparison " wi' a crack," is a poor, 
 frivolous, shallow, altogether heartless business. A crack is, 
 indeed, only adequately to be defined as a ckat with a good, 
 kindly, human heart in it ; whereas to chat is too probably to 
 chatter merely, as Mr Carlyle would say, "from the teeth out- 
 wards." It is in virtue of this shadow of home-grown emotion 
 over it, that Scotch is so exquisite a vehicle — this is, I suppose, 
 admitted — for the expression of the simpler forms of pathos, and 
 a particular type of humour — a humour which is deep in the 
 very genius of the language itself; and seems always at least 
 as much indebted to t/ial as to the talent of the particular 
 humorist. 
 
 I
 
 MEMOIR. xxiii 
 
 Apart from the general charge of gross pla- 
 giarism — of which anon — afterwards preferred 
 against the " Life-Drama," I have seen it alleged 
 by here and there a depreciatory critic, that the 
 detail of nature in it seemed rather got up by 
 way of book than studied from the real thing. 
 I should suppose there might be something in 
 this ; inasmuch as Macdonald — by far the most 
 competent judge of such a matter I ever chanced 
 to come in contact with — used to tender the 
 same accusation. Botany he had studied at 
 once scientifically, and with the vivid interest of 
 delight proper to the poet ; and touching the 
 nature and habits of birds, beetles, butterflies, 
 every creeping or flying thing, he was a mine of 
 curious information.* Hence, as regarded the 
 minuticB of nature, almost no poet was safe 
 from him ; and even " Rabbie " himself would 
 now and then be called in question "The 
 
 * It will scarce ever, I believe, be found that a man of these 
 peculiar tastes is of other than essentially gentle nature ; and of 
 such ^^acdonald eminently was ; a man of "impetuous blood,' ' 
 yet — as the phrase goes — who "would not have hurt a fly." 
 These odd brusqueries and outbursts in which, on occasion, he 
 indulged himself, were so//«tv/— thus to speak — in the genial and 
 kindly nature of the man, that there could never be a shadow 
 of offence in them, but merely matter of amusement.
 
 xxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 Posie" he could not abide, in its incongruous 
 conjunction of flowers which, as children of 
 different seasons, could never in nature co- 
 exist. Milton's "Lycidas" he abused on the 
 same ground — it is needless to say his point of 
 view was, in either case, quite wrong (though he 
 never could be got to see this), as confusing the 
 separate jurisdictions of the poet and the man 
 of science — and he wrote a song called " The 
 Flower Lovers " (really an exquisite piece), from 
 which, as done on exact principles, he plainly 
 considered both " Rabbie " and Milton, had they 
 survived to hear him sing it, would have got 
 an important wrinkle or two. Smith's preten- 
 sions to any accurate knowledge of Nature he 
 treated with undisguised contempt ; and, in the 
 country walks they constantly took together, he 
 assiduously set himself to coach him up in these 
 neglected parts of knowledge. As frequently 
 present, I may certify, that seldom can the truths 
 of Natural Science have been communicated in 
 more original and ^ amusing fashion. It was 
 commonly of a Sunday (the Sawbith they mostly 
 called it in these parts) that we sallied forth on 
 such excursions. How vividly I now remember 
 them; and the figure of Macdonald, with its
 
 MEMOIR. XXV 
 
 oddity somewhat enhanced by a huge tin case 
 slung round him, which he called, I rather think, 
 a Vasaduni ! This implement was popularly 
 supposed to receive and conserve botanical 
 specimens ; but I don't think I ever saw any in 
 it. Not the less, on such occasions, Hugh never 
 came abroad without it ; and it was plain he 
 considered it conferred on the expedition some 
 savour of the dignity of Science. On this vas- 
 culum of Hugh's, Smith and I used to break at 
 times a good deal of profane wit — or iviit, as 
 perhaps, it might be — but all to no purpose. 
 And no doubt the thing had its uses ; if it never 
 brought back any specimens, at least it seldom 
 failed to take out with it a fair supply of whisky 
 and sandwiches. Our favourite walk was some 
 five or six miles up Clyde from Glasgow, and 
 included many reaches of river scenery so 
 exquisite in beauty that I have scarce elsewhere 
 seen them equalled. It had also the advantage 
 of including (Forbes Mackenzie, as yet, was not) 
 a certain modest hostelrie, a very pet "howf" of 
 Macdonald's, kept by a fine, typical, old Scotch- 
 woman, whose cakes and ale were excellent, and 
 whose racy, old homely humours made you feel 
 as if, in entering her hut, you had walked into a
 
 xxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 Waverlcy novel. These were delightful days ; 
 and otherwise I consider it certain that Smith 
 well found his account in them. With the truest 
 delight in Nature, which had in him the depth of 
 an instinct, his natural tendency was rather to 
 brood and expand in spirit over the wide glories 
 of the sky and earth, than to close and minute 
 observation in detail. This, and the habit of 
 this, his association with Macdonald more and 
 more tended to educe in him. Moreover, Hugh, 
 in his own person, was on these topics profuse 
 and inexhaustible, so as — me jiidice — nearly to 
 become a bore at times ; and only to listen to 
 him thus a-field, was, for one with any care or 
 turn that way, to acquire a great deal of useful 
 and useless information. It is scarcely too much 
 to say, that three-fourths of what, for Smith, 
 might be afterwards in this kind available, was 
 taught him by Hugh Macdonald. Once, as we 
 were pacing quietly along a wooded stretch of 
 the river side, he broke out suddenly, " Od, but 
 he 's a queer fallow that ! " and catching on the 
 instant our surprise — no soul being visible in the 
 landscape to whom the remark could apply — 
 he added, " It 's that chiel Tennyson I 'm speakin'
 
 MEMOIR. xxvii 
 
 o'. Hark ye baith, noo : " and in his very best 
 English manner, he went on to quote, 
 
 "Why lingers she to clothe her heart with love? 
 Delaying, as the tender ash delays. 
 To clothe herself when all the woods are green." 
 
 " Ye mind it, Sandy ! it's i' the ' Princess ;' an' 
 noo, look ye, t/ia^'s an ash" — pointing with his staff 
 — "maybe ye think it's an elm, Sandy ! but it's no 
 an elm, it's an ash; au' dcil a leaf orit, see ye na ? 
 an' «' the itJicr trees are oot ! I didna need ony 
 o' yer Tennysons to tell me that ; but neither o' 
 ye kent it, I reckon. He 's nae poet ; I '11 aye 
 say that ; but I'se alloo ye '11 no aften find him 
 wrang wi' his flooers, an' his trees, an' things ; Jie 
 kens them, Sandy! zxi ye dinna. But ye 're nae 
 poets, neither tane nor t' ither o' ye. Damme if," 
 etc., (the usual amen to the discourse). Another 
 time, on a bright spring morning, the air all 
 ringing round us with the keen, clear music of 
 the larks, fluttering up and falling, he took 
 occasion most learnedly to expound to us the 
 meaning of the passage in the " Gardener's 
 Daughter," in which the lark is said to 
 
 " Shake its song together as it nears 
 - Its happy home, the ground" — 
 
 by both of us admitted somewhat obscure. I
 
 xxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 am unable to reproduce his statement in the 
 vernacular ; but, in effect,, it was somewhat 
 thus — that the note of the climbing lark is subtly- 
 distinguished from that of the descending one ; 
 the effect in the one case being expansive, in the 
 other, concentrative : the song of the creature as 
 it soars seeming to fling itself rapturously abroad 
 into the skyey spaces, and out of them as it 
 descends, with equal rapture to collect itself, so 
 to speak, converging on the home-nest beneath. 
 To Macdonald's ear — if you believed him — this 
 distinction in the notes was as perfect as any in 
 music. On my venturing to say that to mine, 
 after trying ever so, it remained quite inappreci- 
 able, a brusque " It 's weel seen jj/<r hae nac lugs" 
 was all the response vouchsafed me. Whether 
 Smith had more success than I in the matter, I 
 do not the least remember. With this sort of 
 talk it was that Hugh was wont to regale us.* 
 
 Never since thus, with these men, have I walked 
 up the Clyde from Glasgow Should I ever 
 
 * It could not but at times occur as a question to one, 
 whether, critically knowing Tennyson and the rest, as perhaps 
 not most of their admirers do, Hugh's contempt was not more 
 or less assumed. I was almost inclined to suspect in it, at times, 
 an element of whimsical humour ; but if this was to any great 
 extent really present, he kept his own counsel wonderfully.
 
 MEMOIR. xxix 
 
 again find myself treading the remembered path, 
 which winds beside, the shining river, it could 
 scarcely be but' that some ghost of the pleasant 
 past would flit at times about the landscape, 
 making sad for me its fairest sunshine. 
 
 I have, perhaps, a little unduly dwelt on this 
 episodical topic of Hugh Macdonald ; but some- 
 how it pleased me to do so ; and I allowed 
 myself to take as my guide that idle instinct of 
 pleasure, somewhat, it may be, to the detriment of 
 my proper subject. Moreover, of Smith's life in 
 Glasgow, Macdonald was really so large a part 
 that, on looking back on these times, it is only 
 by an effort of abstraction that I can disconnect 
 the two men in imagination. Farther, his rela- 
 tions with Macdonald — who so loved him as a 
 fe man, yet so consistently damned him, '\n good 
 ^Kset terms, as a poet, the love being warmly re- 
 rcip''ocated, and t'other thing good-humouredly 
 ^Bset aside as of no importance whatever — give 
 a curiously accurate, if slighty exaggerated, 
 image of the easy terms on which, throughout, 
 he lived with all who were so happy as ta be 
 
 (intimate with him. Here, for once, was a Poet 
 who did not, as a necessary condition of his 
 friendship, insist you should admire his poetry ;
 
 XXX MEMOIR. 
 
 who might be trusted not to Hke you any less 
 if expressly you told him you disliked it, and 
 would try to show him reason good. 
 
 In 1852, the "Life-Drama," in its completed 
 form, was published by Mr Bogue of London, 
 and its instant reception, by the critics alike and 
 the public, might almost be called rapturous ; 
 not since the morning on which Byron "woke 
 and found himself famous," had such peals of 
 applause been rung in honour of a youthful 
 aspirant. The sins and shortcomings of the 
 work w^ere indeed on the face of it obvious, 
 yet scarcely such as, in the eyes of a conside- 
 rate critic, to weigh heavily against its merits. 
 As Art, not much was to be said for it ; but it 
 mieht well seem idle to criticise severely from 
 this point of view a Avork so plainly announced 
 as w^hat it really was, a mere agglomeration to a 
 great extent — as Heaven pleased, and the Poet 
 could with pain contrive it — of certain masses 
 of occasional poetry-, independently conceived 
 and executed. Admit, too — as even a kindly 
 critic might not object to do, if asked — that 
 beyond the Poet's aspiration after " Fame," and 
 " divine despair," in contemplating it as unattain- 
 able ; the " first virgin passion of a soul com-
 
 MEMOIR. xxxi 
 
 muning"* with so much of "the glorious uni- 
 verse" as opportunity had been given him to 
 observe ; the passion of love, for the most part as 
 passion siniplicitcr — a fierce confounding tumult 
 of soul and aching sense — rather than in its 
 tender mysteries, and those delicate gradations 
 of sentiment, in the subtle treatment of which 
 the poet attains a finer and more difficult suc- 
 cess ; admit that, with exception of these things 
 and some crude occasional notions touching the 
 aims and functions of the art which he aspired 
 to practise, Mr Smith did not seem to have had 
 very much to write about when he set himself 
 to write the " Life-Drama." Admit this, and it 
 could not be held to amount to much, if admis- 
 sion had also to be made that, in treating of 
 these his inevitable subjects — no very bad ones 
 after all — the Poet exhibited true intellectual 
 mastery, a haunting sense of beauty as every- 
 where a " living presence ;" rare depth of emo- 
 tional tone, and such a rich full-flooding music, 
 as from these is naturally evolved. His special 
 predilection for the moon, stars, etc., it was 
 eminently easy to ridicule ; but, except for the / 
 display of one's wit, it could scarcely seem 
 
 * Wordsworth.
 
 xxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 worth while to do so, inasmuch as it is a 
 sounder symptom in a poet to repeat frankly 
 in his verse the things which he knows and 
 loves than morbidly to seek for variety among 
 things which he only imperfectly knows, and of 
 which he cannot thus have the mastery which 
 sincerity of emotion will imply. Of his fondness 
 for figures and fine phrases, and tendency to 
 accumulate them, like plums in a pudding, on 
 the cook's principle that the more plums the 
 better will be the pudding, clearly no sensible 
 critic could feel called upon to speak very un- 
 kindly. A young poet shall as soon be got to 
 sacrifice a flashy metaphor, as a wit to throttle 
 his best bon mot, in sympathy with the feelings 
 of a friend which'' the joke is certain to lacerate ; 
 and the severer harmonies of style, when they 
 come to a writer at all, are given him only as 
 reward of a severe and persistent self-culture. 
 In brief, such faults as those indicated might be 
 recognised as incident, and indeed inevitable, to 
 youth, and restrictions of opportunity and ex- 
 perience. Of a certain hankering after the charms 
 of Cleopatra (afterwards by Aytoun so consum- 
 mately quizzed), and tendency at times to some 
 warmth of suggestive treatment, not much re-
 
 MEMOIR. xxxiii 
 
 quired to be said ; displeasing to some, it was 
 rather refreshing to others (and these no mean 
 judges), as a return to the robuster manner of 
 the earlier day, and a relief from the over- 
 squeamish refinements, which had somewhat /' 
 tended, in purifying our poetry, to enfeeble it ; ~ 
 and, in any case, these diilcia vitia also — not in 
 themselves excessive — as natural and proper to 
 youth, might readily enough be forgiven to it. 
 
 Thus, for a while, it seemed ruled ; and the 
 critics, with remarkable unanimity, merely hint- 
 ing at faults which were obvious, concurred to 
 celebrate the splendour of the poem in passages — 
 the genuine power and passion displayed in it — 
 the happy boldness of its abundant imagery — its 
 frequent combination of strength and delicacy 
 of expression, and the vein of real originality 
 which was evident, underlying imitation as 
 evident, now of this poet, now of the other. 
 Glancing over a selection from these deliver- 
 ances, which the publisher prefixed to his Second 
 Edition, I find them highly curious reading, and 
 not in their way uninstructive. The reflections 
 they naturally suggest rather tend to take the 
 form of a question as to what after all may be ' 
 the worth of very much of our contemporary
 
 xxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 criticism. Did the critics and the public play the 
 fool in these first raptures of delight ; or was it 
 aftcrzuards they did so, in treating- with deprecia- 
 tion and neglect by comparison, the distinctly 
 better and more finished work which the Poet 
 went on to give them ? Or was it, perhaps, at 
 both periods, and alike in their applause and their 
 neglect, that they approved themselves incapable 
 of a sane and discreet judgment ? This last is 
 the notion to which personally I am disposed 
 to lean, as surmising that the truth in the 
 matter is to be found, as usual, about half-way 
 between the extremes of opinion indicated. The 
 positive ///;'t?;r of applause and prophecy which 
 greeted the poem on its appearance, was of the 
 nature of irrational transport, some reaction from 
 which might readily have been foreseen as in- 
 evitable. 
 
 " These \aolent delights have violent ends, 
 And in their triumph die." 
 
 And the reaction, when it came, was naturally 
 as irrational and excessive as the first impulse of 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 As to the " Life Drama," — not to be ecstatic 
 about it, as the critics were — it may very well 
 at this date bear a reperusal. It is indeed
 
 MEMOIR. XXXV 
 
 surprisingly young in parts, so as almost at 
 times to attain a fnic, light, comic effect ; a good 
 deal of its showy imagery (which the critics 
 were so kind as to admire) an exact taste re- 
 jects as spurious ;* and a good deal more of 
 it, while striking and fairly to be admitted, is yet 
 not without some taint of the bravura business ; 
 much, however, remains which is thoroughly 
 genuine and noble, and, as such, will always, 
 I believe, be recognised by the competent in 
 such matters. Over much of the book there is 
 clear impress of a passionate and peculiar mind ; 
 if oftentimes somewhat crude, the workmanship 
 is not seldom admirably finished and close in 
 texture ; and many passages might be indicated 
 
 * Take an instance, which has been admired, yet the artifice of 
 which becomes evident when we place beside it the real thing: — 
 
 " More tremulous 
 Than the soft star that in the azure east 
 Trembles lulth pity o'er bright bleeding day 
 Was his frail soul." 
 
 Compare Scott in "Rokeby," where Bertrain — his mind over- 
 shadowed by prescience of violent doom — likens the exit he fore- 
 sees for himself to the setting of a tropic sun : 
 
 " With disc, like battle-target, red 
 He rushes to his burning bed ; 
 Dyes the wild wave with bloody light, 
 Then sinks at once, and all is night." 
 
 Or farther, Shakespeare — when by the same image he indicates
 
 xxxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 which, simply as such, may very well bear com- 
 parison with the best poetry of our time. Dis- 
 missing all questionable matter — the standard 
 set up being as severe as you will — there remains 
 from the book a riot inconsiderable rcsidmcm of 
 pure and beautiful poetry, some portion of which 
 is perhaps even to be called great. (If some 
 people who once thought it great, have now 
 changed their minds about it, the poetry itself 
 has not, I suppose, much changed). It might be 
 held of good augury, that frequently, in con- 
 descending to be simple, the Poet attained his 
 
 the shudder of boding awe proper to the morn of Shrewsbury 
 battle :— 
 
 " How bloodily the sun begins to peer 
 
 Above yon bosky hill ; tlu day looks pale 
 
 At his distcmperature." 
 
 In either case, more eminently in the last, there is grand ima- 
 ginative suggestion ; emotion dominant brings together the dis- 
 parates, and effects for them a true unity in the suggested emotion 
 of the reader. In Smith's adaptation they are unified, if at all, 
 only in a flash of barren surprise, instantly to fall asunder again. 
 Moreover, such instant pleasure as there may be in the surprise, 
 next instant the mind resents, as with a sense of having been — if 
 only for the instant — taken in. And of this sort of thing, it is to 
 be frankly admitted, there is somewhat too much in the "Life 
 Drama." Nobody more frankly admitted this than Smith him- 
 self, when the book was scarce well out of his hands ; even then, 
 it was curious and edifying to note how clearly in taste he had 
 risen above it.
 
 MEMOIR. xxxvii 
 
 finest success. Here, for example, is a little 
 piece, put into the lips of a dying girl, which I 
 do not remember any where to have seen quoted, 
 but which seems to me of rather superior merit: — 
 
 " The callow young were huddling in the nests, 
 The marigold was burning in the marsh,* 
 Like a thing dipt in sunset, when he came. 
 
 My blood went up to meet him on my face, 
 Glad as a child that hears its father's step. 
 And runs to meet him at the open porch. 
 
 I gave him all my being, like a flower 
 That flings its perfume on a vagrant breeze ; 
 A breeze that wanders on and heeds it not. 
 
 His scorn is lying on my heart like snow. 
 My eyes are weary, and I fain would sleep ; 
 The quietest sleep is underneath the ground. 
 
 * Of course, one very well knows whence this, in a sense, 
 may have come : — 
 
 " The wild marsh marigold shmes like fire in swamps and hollows grey." 
 
 — May Queen. 
 " And at the root, through lush green grasses, burned 
 The red anemone." — A Dream of Fair Women. 
 
 But only think of a man wishing to perpetrate literary larceny, 
 and hoping to escape detection, going for his plunder to Tenny- 
 son's "May Queen!" With the flower itself, the maisli mari- 
 gold (or, Scottice, lucken-gowan). Smith, when he wrote this 
 piece— about the last thing written of the "Life-Drama" — 
 through Macdonald, if not otherwise — was nearly as familiar as 
 he could be with the daisy or gowan proper. 
 
 C 2
 
 xxxvin 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Are ye around me, friends ? I cannot see— 
 I cannot hear the voices that I love, 
 //;// my hands to you from out the night I 
 
 Methought I felt a tear upon my cheek ; 
 Weep not, my mother! It is time to rest, 
 And I am very weary : so, good night ! " 
 
 The point of view conceded which admits the 
 thing as uttered— and almost no poetry is safe 
 fronT a hard and literal criticism which would 
 decline to concede it — surely this is highly 
 successful. Exquisite is the art of contrast and 
 just gradation with which the remembered flush 
 of happy colour over the first verses, passing into 
 chill and wintry bareness, subsides in the pale 
 simplicities of death. Then the 
 
 " I lift my hands to you from out the night ! " 
 
 a line wonderful in its exceeding truth and 
 mournfulncss, its helpless pleading tenderness 
 and depth of lonely doom ! Farther, that " Weep 
 not, my mother ! " so touching, if its nice re- 
 lations arc caught with the previous, 
 
 " I cannot see — 
 I cannot hear the voices that I love ! " 
 
 The mists of death make dark the eyes ; already 
 are the ears for ever shut from sound ; on the 
 fading face there falls a tear, and the dim, sure
 
 MEMOIR. xxxix 
 
 instinct of love, outliving these decays of sense, 
 recognises it as a mother's ; — I should think 
 it was not very unlikely to be. If there be not 
 in this a particular subtle delicacy of simple and 
 pathetic suggestion, worth a page or two of fine 
 figures, my feeling in the matter is at fault. And 
 throughout Smith's poetry, whoever does not 
 find a good deal precisely of this class of merit, 
 must simply be without the heart and the eye 
 for it. But enough, and somewhat more than 
 enough of criticism, at this time of day as good 
 as idle, and, in any case, beside the present 
 purpose. 
 
 How, meantime, did the youthful Poet com- 
 port himself with all this pother going on about 
 him, and announcements reaching him from day 
 to day that his "poems were in no respect in- 
 ferior to those of the Laureate ;" that he was "a 
 finer poet than Keats in the very qualities in 
 which Keats is finest ;" "one whom we certainly 
 believe to be the greatest poet Scotland has ever 
 produced," etc., etc., etc. (some ten, or nearer 
 twenty, pages of such matter might, if it seemed 
 good, be quoted) t With a sang froid which 
 might be held perfect ; and so little like a man 
 of Genius, one began to surmise that he might
 
 X 
 
 1 MEMOIR. 
 
 be so. Profoundly gratified, of course, he was ; 
 nor did he foohshly affect an indifference which, 
 even had he really felt it, he would have been 
 shrewd enough to be shy of expressing, as know- 
 ing it would not be believed in. Now, as always, 
 his bearing was distinguished by a quiet and 
 manly simplicity. Some little show of elation 
 might here very well have been excused to him ; 
 but I should be surprised if any one could say 
 he ever saw in him the smallest trace of such a 
 thing. The theory of his conduct apart— to any 
 one who knew him almost too absurd for even 
 hypothetical statement— of a self-esteem so co- 
 lossal, that it quietly absorbed, as no more than 
 merely its due, the most extravagant incense 
 that might be offered— there could be no better 
 proof than it furnished of the essential strength, 
 soundness, and solidity of his nature. The truth 
 was— I before hinted as much— that already he 
 stood considerably above his book, and the 
 general ruck of its critics ; at the more ecstatic 
 flio-hts of whom he did not the least object that 
 you should pass on him a quiet jest or so. A per- 
 fect frankness in such matters he almost exacted 
 from his friends— rather, in virtue of the beautiful 
 candour, simplicity, and sweetness of the man's
 
 MEMOIR. xli 
 
 nature, such a frank way of treating him in such 
 matters, for everyone really his intimate became 
 naturally the law of the case. Had I tho^ight, 
 as our admirable friend Hugh did, that he was 
 " nae poet," it is, I fear, almost certain I would, 
 some time or other, have said so to him ; and it 
 is, at least, equally certain my criticism would 
 have been received with much the same easy 
 good humour with which he acquiesced in 
 Macdonald's. Hence — as having often dis- 
 cussed it with him — in saying that nobody 
 more sharply than its author could see the 
 really vital defects of the "Life-Drama," even 
 whilst the critics were clamouring their best and 
 their worst applause over it, I say only what 
 consists with my certain knowledge. 
 
 For the copyright of the book the Poet re- 
 ceived from Mr Bogue ;^ioo, a sum which was 
 afterwards supplemented according to the suc- 
 cess of the work, as it ran through successive 
 editions — to what precise extent I have for- 
 gotten, if ever I knew, i^ioo! It is a small 
 sum ; but to a young gentleman whose breeches' 
 pocket thrills with it for the first time, it seems 
 a considerable bit of money, with more good 
 prospective spending in it than £'1000 a year
 
 xlii MEMOIR. 
 
 or two after. One's first ;^ioo is somewhat like 
 one's first love, and is consecrated for ever in 
 memor)^ in connection with a good deal of folly 
 and rapture. Of Smith's raptures with his first 
 £\oo, nobody could possibly know anything ; for 
 the reason that, except on paper to the public, he 
 never indicated rapture, or even the germ of a 
 capacity for it. His folly, so far as I know of it, 
 amounted to this, that— a thing from the first 
 preordained and inevitable— he cut decisively 
 the pattern-designing concern — in which, to say 
 sooth, his forte did not greatly lie*— as surmis- 
 ing that literature, in one or the other form of 
 it, was marked out for him as his proper career ; 
 and farther, as second item, that his time being 
 thus at his o\Vn disposal, and the necessary funds 
 in hand, he considered a trip to London might 
 be allowable, taking the Lake or Wordsworth 
 
 * This I chance to know from a sure source, having had it 
 of one of his employers. This gentleman, some time after, 
 along with another Glasgow friend of Smith's, I happened to 
 meet at an inn in the Highlands. In the course of the evening 
 he fell into a state which I will tenderly call covuminicative ; 
 and my friend— well known in the West as a humorist— could 
 not resist the temptation to draw him out on the subject of 
 Smith and his poetry. His critique of the " Life-Drama " was 
 exquisite, and curiously accordant with the opinion of some of 
 its later critics. Of the Bard's designing talent (of which he
 
 MEMOIR. xliii 
 
 country on the way. On this Httle expedition 
 he fared forth accordingly, accompanied by his 
 friend, John Nichol (son of the then Professor 
 Nichol, and now himself Professor of English 
 Literature in Glasgow). Going by the Lakes, 
 thev visited Miss Martineau,* introduced by 
 Nicliol, senior — as naturally a little agog after 
 anything- in the shape of genius, were desirous, 
 
 migh; be admitted a better judge) he made so little, that he 
 assered the poetry had been written '''■ at my expense, sir, every 
 
 line of it." On the whole, it became pleasantly obvious 
 
 that ;his worthy gentleman (he really was so, I believe, though, 
 as I iaid, at the moment communicative) had for some years of 
 his Ife been entertaining an Angel as entirely unawares as it is 
 usual to entertain Angels. Of course, on the first opportunity, 
 Smi.h was regaled with this little anecdote, and it seemed to 
 delight him extremely. 
 
 * At Ambleside ; and here a rather ludicrous thing befell the 
 Po;t, who with much gusto i-etailed it. Miss Martineau, it is 
 otlerwise well known, is a little infirm of hearing. When the 
 travellers arrived, several ladies were with her, and by the little 
 circle of petticoats they were received with some e/?ipressntent. 
 Mr Nichol took up the running, and some little conversation 
 proceeded, Smith, in the racing phrase, waiting. Presently he 
 "came with a rush," and observed it "had been a very fine 
 day " — an unimpeachable and excellent remark, which brought 
 him instantly into "difficulties." Miss Martineau was at once 
 on the qui vive ; the Poet had made a remark — probably instinct 
 with fine genius, and worthy of the author of the "Life-Drama." 
 " Would Mr Smith be so good as to repeat what he had said ?" 
 Mr Smith — looking, one need not doubt, uncommonly like an ass
 
 xliv MEMOIR. 
 
 through her, of making the acquaintance of 
 Charlotte Bronte, but found it could not be 
 done, the poor lady being in one of her dreadful 
 fits of hypochondriacal depression, so that no 
 intrusion on her could be ventured ; did Festus 
 Bailey — to Smith an object of much interest — 
 somewhere in one or other of the Midland 
 Counties; and so to London, \\4liich they ilso 
 did, very much, I imagine, like any two o:her 
 young gentlemen of no particular genius dung 
 it for the first time. Naturally, on his return. 
 Smith had a good deal to speak about. St 
 Paul's he had seen, of course ; the Abbey, vith 
 its Poet's Corner, which, except for the deal of 
 good company in it, he thought an undesirable 
 place of residence ; the theatres, Evans,' the Coal 
 
 ^ - — — ■ — 1 
 
 — repeated'it in somewhat a higher key. Alas ! alas ! iii van. 
 The old lady shook her head ; " it was really so annoying, Wt 
 she did not quite catch it— would Mr Smith h<t again so good'" 
 and her hand was at her eager ear. The unhappy Bard, feeling, 
 as he said, in his distress, as if suicide might be the thing, 
 shrieked and again shrieked his little piece of information, 
 symptoms of ill-suppressed merriment becoming obvious around 
 him. Finally, the old lady's ear-trumpet was produced, and 
 proceeding to shriek through this instrument, of which the deli- 
 cate use was unknown to him, the Bard nearly blew her head off. 
 She obtained, however, in this way, the piece of information she 
 wanted. Professor Nichol doubtless well remembers this ; and 
 if in any little detail I err, I am liable to his correction.
 
 MEMOIR. xlv 
 
 Hole, and other such places of elegant evening 
 recreation. Also, he had been thrown into the 
 society of a good many interesting people. From 
 Mr Lewes he had met with much kindness and 
 attention ; of Mr Herbert Spencer, with whom 
 he had come a good deal en rapport, he also 
 spoke in terms of warm liking ; Mr Helps, 
 with whom he spent a pleasant forenoon, wished 
 to carry him off for a week or so to his place in 
 some Shire forgotten, but he found himself un- 
 able to go. Various other such people he had 
 met, and from his own very modest account, one 
 surmised he had been made a little a Lion of. 
 Mr Carlyle he had much wished to see — as then 
 and always a very loyal admirer, though scarce 
 at any time to be called a disciple — but somehow 
 had failed to do so, and was not likely to think 
 of violently intruding himself in the classic pre- 
 cincts at Chelsea. A Lion — as Mr Carlyle has 
 frequently told us — is the most stupid of the 
 beasts of the field, or more and more tends to 
 become so ; but for one so quietly self-centred 
 as Smith, the position was but little perilous. 
 That on its one side, he found it unpleasant to 
 be absurdly stared at, as if he were an animal in 
 a cage, to be seen for the matter of sixpence, I
 
 xlvi MEMOIR. 
 
 make no manner of doubt ; yet the thing had its 
 other and pleasant side ; it was plain that on the 
 whole he had thoroughly enjoyed his visit to the 
 great Babylon ; and more or less it could not 
 but be fruitful to him in various ways. 
 
 What may be held his chief exploit as a Lion 
 he executed soon after his return, in a visit of a 
 week or thereabout to Inverary Castle, as the 
 guest of the Duke of Argyle. Burns, in his 
 earlier time, finding himself in company with an 
 amiable young nobleman, Lord Daer, felicitated 
 himself as on 
 
 "A ne'er to be forgotten day — 
 Sae far I sprachled up the brae 
 I dinner' d wi' a Lord." 
 
 It seemed then for Burns a great honour doubt- 
 less ; to day it almost seems as if for Lord Daer, 
 of the two, the honour was distinctly the greater. 
 Whether or no Smith considered that the Duke* 
 did him great honour in inviting him to In- 
 verary Castle, I could not undertake to say ; if 
 
 • It is a pity to spoil a point for a critic who may chance to 
 be in want of one ; but I am really not here implying that Smith 
 was as great a genius as Bums, any more than that Lord Daer- 
 an amiable person, but never specially considered bright-had 
 he lived into this age of Science, could have written the "Reign 
 of Law."
 
 MEMOIR. xlvii 
 
 so, it did not, at least, any way discompose him. 
 In so far as he might really be a man of Genius — 
 as to which there did not at that time seem to be 
 any question — the only honour very obvious to 
 myself in the matter, is that which the Duke did 
 himself, in the exercise of his graceful courtesy. 
 With a very nice eye for the humorous side 
 of things, here a little sharpened by contrast, the 
 Poet, when he returned, was able to amuse us 
 considerably ; but should I seek to amuse the 
 reader with his notes of the Ducal menage, the 
 proceeding would perhaps be reckoned somewhat 
 too American. Not that there was anything 
 whatever in them which might not quite frankly 
 be printed. It is almost needless to say that, as 
 guest of the Duke, he was treated with every 
 courtesy, kindness, and attention. It is not from 
 the Iiatite noblesse, as a rule, that one need look 
 for that species of more or less refined brutality, 
 which, with so many of the uneasy class below, 
 seems all they can ever know of good manners. 
 On the whole, he had passed his time pleasantly. 
 With Lord Dufferin — also a guest — as much 
 about his own age, he was a good deal thrown 
 together, and found him an affable and pleasant 
 gentleman. That some time after this, Smith
 
 xlviii MEMOIR. 
 
 visited him at his seat in Ireland, might be held 
 to indicate that the appreciation was more or 
 
 less mutual. 
 
 ThouMi "Fame" seemed thus in a manner 
 to have come to him, beyond the bliss of his 
 dreams, the immediate outlooks of the Poet 
 were not now particulary brilliant, A man can- 
 not live by bread alone ; and if he could, poetry 
 of itself— even if rather successful — is not likely 
 to procure him a sufficiency of it. To hack 
 literature, if only it be honestly done, is a per- 
 fectly honourable occupation. So is the hack- 
 ing of wood ; perhaps of the two the more to be 
 desired for a person well thewed and sinewed. 
 The former kind of labour seemed that pre- 
 destined for Smith ; and, if I rightly remember, 
 he was now for some little time engaged in 
 editing a weekly literary Serial, under the 
 auspices of Mr R. Buchanan, proprietor of the 
 Glasgow Sentinel, and father of Mr Robert 
 Buchanan, of whom the literary world has cog- 
 nisance as a Poet, and otherwise. There did not 
 seem any great life in the thing; and, indeed, an 
 Archangel as its Editor, instead of the "Author 
 of the 'Life-Drama,'" would scarcely in Glasgow 
 have ensured for such a thing success. Con-
 
 MEMOIR. xlix 
 
 sequently when, in 1854, the post of Secretary 
 to the Edinburgh University became vacant, 
 and it was suggested from that quarter that it 
 might very well suit Smith, the suggestion 
 seemed a highly sensible one, and he became, 
 accordingly, a candidate. For any little place of 
 the kind, the competitors in these days are nume- 
 rous ; even in regard of Literature, more than 
 one of those pitted against him had very con- 
 siderable claims ; and the contest was somewhat 
 a keen one. It was, however, decided in his 
 favour, a good deal — it is only proper to say — 
 through the influence of the then Lord Provost 
 of Edinburgh, Mr Duncan M'Laren, now M.P. 
 for the City. Of all men I have ever known, 
 Smith w^as, perhaps, the stillest in external pro- 
 cedure ; and he took his success very coolly. 
 To myself, as to his other Glasgow friends, the 
 matter was occasion of some anxiety ; as to 
 himself, without doubt it must have been. On 
 the afternoon of the day of election, I called on 
 him, saying, as I entered, "Well, have you heard } 
 — how is it V " All right !" he answered, looking 
 up, with an air of impassivity as entire as if the 
 matter were of no personal concernment to him — 
 " I heard about half an hour ago ; suppose we go
 
 1 MEMOIR. 
 
 and do a quiet pipe over it ! " This we proceeded 
 to do; and such Httle details as had reached him 
 were, through that easy medium, communicated. 
 In leaving Glasgow for Edinburgh, Smith un- 
 doubtedly made a change for the better, as 
 regarded the influences bearing on his mental 
 culture and development. Not that Glasgow 
 was by any means the intellectual Boeotia some 
 people are disposed to suspect it. Cotton bags 
 indeed abounded ; but even your cotton bag, if 
 you moisten it to the due pitch, will surprise 
 you, from time to time, by developing some 
 gleam of human intelligence; and there were 
 others by no means cotton bags, if a little im- 
 mersed in the article. The mildly Bohemian 
 circle, which the reader had a little peep into, 
 in making the acquaintance of Macdonald, 
 included men of sound and cultivated intelli- 
 gence, with keen literary interests ; humorists 
 of a somewhat rare quality ; and two really pro- 
 found metaphysicians, whose conversation would 
 have been most instructive, if one could only 
 have understood a word of it. But so deep were 
 these good fellows, that, for my own poor part, 
 I never could. This naturally made their con- 
 versation for a time amusing, though it was
 
 MEMOIR. li 
 
 possible to have too much of it. Of men more 
 formally accredited in the intellectual way, 
 Smith also knew several ; notably, Professor 
 Nichol, from whom he met with much kindness, 
 and in whom he had a specimen of an unusually 
 fine and finished talker, somewhat different in 
 type from Macdonald. Some of the other pro- 
 fessors, I rather think, he also knew. At least, I 
 remember his dining with one or other of them 
 at College, to meet Mr Ruskin, then in Glagow.* 
 Still, though Glasgow was thus not wholly a 
 
 * Of a certain passage at this learned feast, Smith — as his way 
 was — gave a rather amusing account. To do honour to the 
 great Art-critic, as much as the City could furnish of ponderous 
 erudition, and stupidity of the finished intellectual kind, had care- 
 fully been got together. The concourse of Wigs was formidable. 
 Later in life, Smith for a wig per sehzA as little reverence as most 
 men — as aware that, not seldom, precisely proportioned to the 
 bigness and fuzziness of the wig, is the depth of the vacuity 
 behind it ; but as yet he was raw and inexperienced ; had not 
 seen many Wigs of the Academic kind, and only dimly began to 
 guess at that invaluable point of knowledge. If a man was a 
 professor of Hebrew, his innocent notion was, he was to be 
 looked at with religious awe, as knowing a supernatural deal of 
 the Old Testament, and of nearly everything else. Such is the 
 ingenuous credulity of youth. As the least thing afraid of his 
 company, he kept himself pretty quiet ; but a Lion cannot with 
 decency sit for hours, and be only stared at ; it is tacitly a part 
 of the bargain that, for his victual and liquor consumed, he is to 
 roar, if only a little. The conversation turning on Art, and
 
 Hi MEMOIR. 
 
 desert for him, Edinburgh was unquestionably 
 the fitter place ; and shortly he migrated thither. 
 His situation as College Secretary might also 
 be held fairly suitable ; and his getting it just 
 when he did, a clear hit of good luck for him. 
 In a money point of view the thing could not be 
 held great, the salary amounting to ;i^i5o. It is 
 a modest sum ; but one has to scribble a good 
 deal at per page before netting it ; and for 
 Smith's very simple needs, so long as he remained 
 unmarried, it might be reckoned reasonably suf- 
 
 particularly on Mr Millais' " Order of Release," he remarked to 
 the Philosopher next him, that the face of the woman in it 
 seemed to him a triumph of complex expression, in the inter- 
 blending of at least three distinct emotions. Mr Ruskin, who 
 sat opposite, snapped him up on the instant — "Would you 
 be good enough to let us know distinctly, Mr Smith, what are 
 these three emotions you speak of?" Mr Smith did not in the 
 least distinctly know what they were ; and here, much to his 
 disgust, he found himself committed to a formal and elaborate 
 exposition of them before this very learned audience, who hushed 
 themselves duly to listen. "An' what did ye mak' o't, Sandy?" 
 asked Macdonald. " Mak' o't!" he answered— the irritation of 
 remembered discomfiture dissolved in his own amusement at it. 
 "I made an ass of myself, of course." "I doot na that, 
 Sandy !" observed his friend. " But what just was't ye said, 
 man !" Of what he said Smith could give but poor account ; 
 but he was clear as to what he thought, as he went on with his 
 broken-kneed deliverance ; and it amounted pretty frankly to 
 this, that he wished Mr Ruskin at the devil.
 
 MEMOIR, liii 
 
 ficient. Such as it was, it gave him just what was 
 desirable — a sound basis for his farther literary- 
 procedure, making him free to write genially 
 the thing he would, not painfully the thing he 
 must. The duties could not be held excessive. 
 Personal presence at the College was required 
 from ten till four ; and given throughout, with 
 what certain of his friends were even disposed to 
 quiz at times, as a too nice, scrupulous, and essen- 
 tially Jinpoetical regularity. What — it would 
 be urged — could in reason be expected of his 
 next book, if, in the process of writing it, he 
 did not neglect his duties a little .'' At certain 
 seasons — the beginning and end of the Session 
 more particularly — there Avas really hard work 
 of somewhat a harassing character ; and at other 
 times, when the work was in itself not much, 
 there was constant liability to interruption, so 
 that the time not employed in work was yet 
 murdered as leisure available for any serious 
 work of his own. And in fact, at the College, 
 he found that little such work could be done, 
 his evenings only being thus disposable to any 
 good literary purpose. But, on the whole, the 
 position was a fairly fortunate one ; and as such, 
 
 on the whole, he considered it. 
 
 D 2
 
 llV 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 In visiting Edinburgh— as one frequently did— 
 I found him, as it seemed to me, very happily 
 situated, and the centre of a most pleasant circle 
 of friends, chiefly men of somewhat the same 
 age, whose aspirations were like his own, towards 
 Literature, and some of whom have since done 
 considerable things in it ; with an Advocate or 
 two, and a sprinkling of Artists, the society of 
 whom he always rather specially affected. Once 
 or twice I went with him to the " Raleigh Club " 
 (so called in honour of Sir Walter, the introducer 
 of the fragrant weed), a weekly meeting of such 
 his intimates, with some pretext of an intellectual 
 aim, in the reading of an occasional paper or 
 so, but obviously convened in the main for 
 good, honest, social purposes of the pipe and the 
 modest tumbler. Of this exceedingly agreeable 
 reunion, I rather think, he was in some sort to be 
 reckoned the founder. With every one— as in- 
 deed it could scarce be otherwise— he was plainly 
 an immense favourite ; and on this side of his 
 society— his "little Bohemia," as we may call 
 it^_he could nowhere have been more for- 
 tunate. As to his relations at this time with 
 Society, in the more formal and accepted sense, 
 I really do not know anything. I should think
 
 MEMOIR. Iv 
 
 it not very improbable that, on his first coming 
 to the place, people asked him a good deal to 
 dinner to look at him as the "Author of the 
 ' Life-Drama.' " 
 
 During the winter of 1854, Mr Sydney Dobell, 
 author of " The Roman," and " Balder," came 
 to reside in Edinburgh. Naturally the two 
 Poets were drawn together; and whilst Dobell 
 remained, they were united in a very close and 
 affectionate friendship, one fruit of which next 
 year came before the world in their little joint 
 issue of Sonnets on the Crimean War. It is 
 throughout — if I rightly remember — a little in- 
 fested with the really very dreadful heresy that 
 any rhymed thing in fourteen lines is entitled to 
 call itself a " Sonnet ;" but otherwise, might be 
 held to fairly maintain, if it could not greatly 
 add to, the reputation of the two writers. In 
 connection with this work, a little anecdote may 
 be here inserted, not much in itself, yet with 
 some slight savour of amusement in it. Simul- 
 taneous with the appearance of these " Sonnets 
 on the War," was that of certain War-vessels in 
 the Firth ; and the whole population of Edin- 
 burgh rushed to see them ; a visit to the Men- 
 of-war was in fact the fashionable order of the
 
 Ivi MEMOIR. 
 
 day. Smith, chancing to be at an evening party 
 at the house of an eminent Publisher, found him- 
 self standing beside this gentleman. Some sort 
 of strumming of a piano, or squall of song, was 
 in progress, making conversation, as a relief from 
 it, at once imperative and difficult ; and it occurred 
 to him to ask his friend : " Had he yet paid a 
 visit to the War-ships .? " The Publisher looked 
 at him for an instant with somewhat a puzzled 
 eye; then answered, with grave empressment, 
 " Yes ; and I think they 'II add greatly to your 
 Fame!" The play of cross purposes tickled the 
 poor bard extremely ; he had not the heart to 
 annoy his host by a protest against his absurd, 
 though innocent, blunder ; but was content to 
 remain under the imputation of being, as he 
 phrased it, " a fool who was fishing for a com- 
 pliment." 
 
 In the Spring of 1857 occurred what was 
 properly the one event of his necessarily some- 
 what monotonous life, after he went to Edin- 
 burgh — his marriage, which was altogether a 
 happy one, as that of some poets has not been. 
 The lady he married was a Miss Flora Mac- 
 donald, from Skye, eldest daughter of Mr 
 Macdonald of Ord, and nearly akin by blood to
 
 MEMOIR. Ivii 
 
 the historic heroine of that name. Within some 
 year or two after, he moved to a pleasant villa 
 at Wardie, near Granton. There he thenceforth 
 lived ; there he died ; and there it is that his 
 friends best love to remember him. Not one of 
 his pretty wide circle of allies but had always 
 hearty welcome of an evening there, even if, as 
 it might chance — by reason of some stress of 
 work — his coming was a little inopportune. For 
 his literary work he had a true love on its own 
 account ; and when, in his later years, the call 
 of duty was superadded, it became " stuff o' the 
 conscience" with him. But scrupulous as his 
 conscience was as to dereliction in that kind, it 
 would have pinched him still more dreadfully had 
 he told a poor fellow to be off, who had quietly 
 dropped in to have a comfortable talk and a 
 pipe with him. Of this form of hideous social 
 barbarity he was never once known to be guilty, 
 sorely as he must at times have been tempted 
 to it. That most savoury of all viands, known 
 as Pot-luck, was always kept warm on the 
 premises ; and in some more regular, though 
 pleasantly informal fashion, he dearly delighted, 
 as occasion served, to dispense his modest hos- 
 pitalities. Three or four of the select — not any
 
 Iviii MEMOIR. 
 
 larger number — a cosy bit of supper, or of 
 dinner, if the whole evening could be spared — 
 for we seldom went off very early from that 
 establishment — this was, I think, his very 
 choicest form of rest from a little spell of over- 
 exertion. The solids despatched, and such 
 little interval elapsed as courtesy to the lady 
 or ladies — if there chanced to be a plurality — 
 seemed inevitably to suggest, a move would be 
 made to the Poet's little study. Pipes would be 
 lit ; the spirit-case being on the table, and a 
 kettle singing its syren suggestions close by, 
 the inference of toddy is obvious ; and the 
 tumbler being duly mixed, the business of the 
 evening would commence, which was good, 
 hearty, careless talk, frequently of a dreadfully 
 unintellectual character. As a man of strong 
 sense, Smith had but slight relish for what is 
 called intellectual conversation ; in fact, the one 
 kind of person to whom he had serious objec- 
 tion was the blockhead, who, at great length, 
 insisted on devolving wisdom upon him. More- 
 over, this was strictly to be held ./4-musement — 
 away as far as possible from the Muses, of 
 whose delightful society he had got for the time 
 a little sick or so. Sunk in his easy chair, the
 
 MEMOIR. lix 
 
 Poet would placidly sit, beaming on his friends 
 a quiet kindliness, and vomiting volumes of 
 smoke upon them — not for the most part him- 
 self very greatly caring to talk, but simply 
 dropping into the conversation from time to time 
 some pertinence of sense or humour, and plainly 
 with his whole soul lapped in easy, indolent 
 delight. Thus pleasantly the hours would fleet, 
 and unawares the evening would be over. It is 
 almost needless to say that in these, as in other 
 matters, his excellent wife (though necessarily 
 excluded from the smoking) always went heartily 
 with him. I have said she came from Skye. 
 To the bagpipe the over-refined ear may object ; 
 a nice taste may decry the kilt, if it will, as a 
 somewhat too airy costume ; but when any 
 shock of steel might be in question, it has never 
 yet been known to decline it, and the name of 
 Highlander is almost a synonym for a warm 
 and exuberant hospitality. 
 
 These are pleasant memories, if also now ne- 
 cessarily sad ones, inasmuch as over the remem- 
 bered blameless satisfactions, the stern fiierunt 
 must be written. They were ; and whilst Time 
 may roll for us its idle round, they cannot any 
 more be. It would be very pleasant if they
 
 Ix MEMOIR. 
 
 could renew themselves like the floral year ; but, 
 in point of fact, they cannot, and there an end. 
 To the most obstinate Encore of the heart, in 
 such a matter, the Destinies, unhappily or 
 happily — who can ever know which ? — are as 
 deaf as the dead we would fain recall. 
 
 From this time forward Smith's Biography 
 resolves itself pretty much into this — the appear- 
 ance of his books before the public ; the emer- 
 gence in his pleasant home at Wardie of a 
 series of little baby faces, dearly welcomed, as 
 the reader may suppose. Daily, with dreadful 
 regularity, he paced his way up to College ; 
 despatched what might chance to be his work 
 there ; and, with a regularity perhaps a little 
 less positively dreadful, paced his meditative 
 way home again. In the evening, what literary 
 work might be on hand would be gone in upon, 
 subject always, as hinted, to interruptions of the 
 social good-fellow or fiend, who, dropping idly 
 in to kill his own evening, might now and then 
 kill the Poet's. In August, he had a clear month 
 of holiday ; and almost always he passed it in 
 Skye, with his wife's relations — the whole house- 
 hold making joyous migration thither. His love 
 for the misty Island was intense. Its grand
 
 MEMOIR. Ixi 
 
 scenery profoundly impressed his imagination. 
 The primitive modes of life, and the lingering of 
 the old patriarchal relations — nearly everywhere 
 else now as good as extinct — were matter to 
 him of unfailing interest and amusement. Dearly 
 loving Skye as he did, there, as elsewhere, he 
 was much beloved ; and,. I doubt not, many an 
 honest Celtic heart was sad — of shepherds and 
 fellows about the hills — when they heard that 
 their " fery coot friend Mr Smuth " was never 
 more to appear among them. It may interest 
 his admirers to know that once at Broadford 
 fair — which he always made a point of attending, 
 though not wanting to purchase any sheep there 
 — he did battle with an obnoxious drover, and, 
 so far as I could ever learn, acquitted himself so 
 as to impress on the countenance of his an- 
 tagonist, and on the Celtic mind generally, a 
 fair notion of the prowess of the " Sassenach." 
 Of this exceptional exploit he was not so proud 
 as he ought to have been ; but surely it does 
 him nothing but honour. Eminently a man of 
 peace as he was, it always seemed to me to in- 
 dicate a particular versatility of genius I should 
 scarcely have been disposed to expect in him. 
 A squeamish biographer would suppress a little
 
 Ixii MEMOIR. 
 
 trait of this kind ; but wliy, in the name of 
 common sense? Smith's hfe, as every man 
 who knew him knew, was one of quite excep- 
 tional discretion and correctness, challenging the 
 severest rigour of scrutiny, \ionce, and probably 
 under provocation — 
 
 " Yet surely Cassio, I believe, received 
 From him that fled some strange indignity 
 Which patience could not pass," — 
 
 he showed a pugnacity strange to him, where is 
 the mighty harm ? Moreover, he had good Aca- 
 demic precedent for it. On two occasions — once 
 at Hawick, and again at Tomintoul in the north 
 — it stands recorded that Professor Wilson, in 
 his practical capacity as teacher of the Moral 
 Sciences, taking off his coat in the market place, 
 proceeded to admonish a miscreant, some point 
 of whose conduct seemed, to his nicer sehse, to 
 outrage tHe Immutable Fitness of Things. And 
 surely what is permitted to a Professor of a Uni- 
 versity may be excused to its emulous Secretary. 
 In 1857 the "City Poems" were issued by 
 Messrs Macmillan & Co., of Cambridge ; and 
 though eminently deserving success, they failed 
 to find it with the public. For this there might 
 be reasons not proper to the book itself, at which
 
 MEMOIR. Ixiii 
 
 it may be well to glance. Though for a while 
 nothing was heard but loud-mouthed applause 
 of the " Life-Drama," the very excess of the 
 eulogy made certain some little protest against 
 it, and presently the work was subjected in 
 one or two quarters to a tolerably trenchant 
 criticism. Certain other attacks followed from 
 time to time, which, so far as they dealt fairly 
 — no matter how severely — with the real de- 
 fects of the book, was really quite as it should 
 be ; and we very soon found that the Poet took 
 his pain with much the same easy equanimity he 
 displayed in relation to the sweet of the business. 
 Not that he dissembled his pain, or professed it 
 a form of pleasure ; he was incapable of these 
 stupid affectations ; and as regarded praise and 
 censure, always very frankly confessed that, of the 
 two, he found the first the more asrreeable. But 
 as the first could not idly elevate, neither could 
 the other depress him — disturb his serene good 
 humour, or for a single instant betray him into 
 exhibition of anything like .small irritation. This 
 admirable balance and serenity in such matters 
 was one of his most curious traits ; nor could I 
 ever quite make out how he came by it, being, 
 as he was, a man profoundly humane, to whom
 
 Ixiv MEMOIR. 
 
 the judgments of his fellow men could never be 
 matter of indifference, and withal— his still ways 
 notwithstanding— of exquisitely sensitive fibre. 
 A stern and haughty self-opinion, and— as hold- 
 ing of this in a measure— a certain cynical depth 
 of world-embracing, scorn, might no doubt effect 
 something of the same result ; but an inhuman 
 attitude of this kind was not in the least in 
 Smith's way. 
 
 From such criticism as that spoken of— intel- 
 lieent as well as severe — nobody could be more 
 capable of profiting than Smith ; and seeing it 
 could not irritate him, I should suppose it may 
 have done him good, in so far as in way of cor- 
 rective he needed it, which he never seemed at 
 all to do. And neither in amount, nor in vigour 
 of virulence, was it such as to harm him with 
 the general public. The case was, however, 
 somewhat otherwise, when, first in " Blackwood," 
 and afterwards in the finished " Firmilian," Pro- 
 fessor Aytoun perpetrated his consummate quiz 
 of what he called "The Spasmodic School" of 
 Poetry, whereof Smith and Dobell were gibbeted 
 as the chiefs. " Firmilian " is a work in which 
 Parody attains the positive rank of genius ; and, 
 tickhng the public extremely, it really proved
 
 MEMOIR. Ixv 
 
 for its victims, in some sort, a shot between wind 
 and water, so to speak. It turned the laugh 
 against them ; and though ridicule is no more 
 the test of Poetry than of Truth, it is always an 
 effective weapon with a public which, above 
 everything, desires to be amused, and commonly 
 for its likings and dislikings, has no more basis 
 of reason than if it were a huge Quadruped, 
 Moreover, the nickname "Spasmodic" prospered 
 in the world ; it stuck; and a patch upon one's 
 nose of this kind is always a point of peril in 
 addressing serious remarks to an audience. The 
 epithet did not originate with Aytoun, who 
 merely " conveyed " it from Carlyle, who had 
 used it with his wonted felicity to characterise 
 the Byronic cestros. The critics and the public 
 caught eagerly at the phrase ; it passed into 
 current use ; and, in fact, it is, at this very day, 
 going about alive and well. But, as used by 
 nine in ten people, it had never very much more 
 intelligence behind it than the " Pretty Poll " of 
 the parrot. 
 
 By a true master in the art critical, this phrase, 
 as I said,^was first applied to Byron. Like most 
 phrases from that mint, as so applied, it has 
 felicity and close pertinence ; yet, when every
 
 Ixvi ' MEMOIR. 
 
 just deduction is made, Byron does not the less 
 survive as one of our "prevailing Poets;" a 
 spiritual potentate, whose power is nowhere 
 expressed in adequate or perfect forms, but pre- 
 cisely for this very reason, remains a portent and 
 a marvel. This, of itself, might suggest that the 
 true question can never be, whether or no a par- 
 ticular Poetry is " Spasmodic ;" but solely whether 
 or no it is good " Spasmodic Poetry." Poetry 
 may be as Spasmodic as you will, yet not the 
 less include, like that of Byron, very genuine and 
 noble elements. What, as exactly defined, really 
 is "Spasmodic Poetry .? "—the Poetry of unrest 
 and despair ; of irregular struggle ; of baffled 
 effort, wild, bewildered, and mistaken — the 
 Poetry, in one word, of Scepticism, not cool in 
 the intellect, as Hume's, but raging, like mutiny 
 of passion in the blood, with the whole perverted 
 might of the heart and the moral emotions. As 
 such, who will may denounce it ; but it will be 
 best not to do so without being fully aware that, 
 in so doing, you expunge very much of the noblest 
 Poetry of the world. It would be almost stupid 
 to cite an array of instances ; Goethe's " Faust " 
 is by nearly common consent the grandest of 
 modern Poems; and precisely because it vibrates
 
 MEMOIR. Ixvii 
 
 and thrills throughout with very passion of 
 spasmodic agony. Hamlet, again — to take an 
 older instance — is, for any one who can trace in 
 the least the workings of the Hero's mind — his 
 doubt, his hesitancy, and delay; the fierce, im- 
 patient spurts of passionate resolve with which he 
 compensates his conscience for them ; the abor- 
 tiveness of these as quenched in the dull miasma 
 of inevitably recurring doubt — may stand as the 
 very type of that decried thing, a " Spasmodic 
 Poem." Scepticism does not indeed, as yet, 
 appear in it, in fierce modern guise, as active 
 mutiny; it could not then possibly do so; but 
 whoso does not see in it distinct premonition of 
 this — the first slow drops of the thunder-shower 
 which since has so deluged the world — has really 
 not read the Poem, and may just as well shut up 
 his Shakespeare, and never again open it. It is 
 not to be denied that a certain class of readers 
 shrink from Poetry of this class with a very 
 strong distaste.* The amusing thing is — there is 
 almost a comic element in it — they seem to 
 
 * See the amusing remarks of Sir James Mackintosh on the 
 " Faust." Shudders are his only criticism. His emotions of 
 terror seem much as if some day, in the street, he had found 
 himself charged by a mad dog.
 
 Ixviii MEMOIR. 
 
 consider their attitude in so doing a pious 
 one ; whereas it is essentially, as often as not, 
 one of Fear, and not of Faith. To readers, 
 again, of another class, it is the Poetry, of 
 all others, which has profound and enthralling 
 interest. 
 
 As to the license permitted to the Poet in his 
 choice and treatment of this class of subject — 
 dark disorder of the heart and brain, and of the 
 issues of life which are out of these — this is 
 greatly too big a subject to be here at all 
 touched with effect. But suppose his wild 
 material granted him to work in — what then } 
 Poetry is in strictness to be defined as a form 
 of life, in which, as in other forms of it, the inner 
 spirit, and the matter in which it is revealed, 
 are properly to be considered as one. By the 
 same law which makes the human face sig- 
 nificant of emotion, and, if we had only wit to 
 read it, a manual of character, and severely 
 expressive record of every lightest shade of 
 feeling which has ever flitted over it, the vary- 
 ing music of the Poet is, in every least capricious 
 turn of it,' expressive of some determining pecu- 
 liarity in the shaping ideas and emotion. If, 
 therefore, here, as elsewhere, " Soul is form, and
 
 MEMOIR. h 
 
 XIX 
 
 doth the body make,"* and the peculiarities of 
 poetical execution are determined by a pecu- 
 liarity presupposed in the subject and concep- 
 tion itself, it will follow, of course, that if a 
 Poem be boldly Spasmodic in its main motives, 
 it will scarce be much worth as a Poem if it does 
 not, in the technic of detail, afford some signi- 
 ficant reflex of spasm. In delineating the blind 
 strivings of a great soul, wildly disordered and 
 at war with itself, shall the Poet discourse you 
 such dulcet strains as might be proper to a 
 shepherd of Arcady piping to his shepherdess 
 on a flowery hill ? There be they who would 
 perhaps exact this ; yet, contrariwise, it might 
 rather seem that, in the detail of the poetical 
 execution of a work, Spasmodic by its very con- 
 ception, as dealing with lawless and ungoverned 
 moods of mind, some sub-insinuation of excess 
 and misrule is not only to be excused, but de- 
 manded, as the fit and necessary reflex of the 
 )riginating ideas and emotions. And only when 
 ixcess itself becomes, as such, excessive, refusing 
 to be rounded in, and subordinated by the poetical 
 form and the larger harmonies of Art, is the 
 
 Spenser — " Hymn to Beauty." 
 
 E 2
 
 Ixx MEMOIR. 
 
 work to be rightly censured, as, in the baser 
 sense, Spasmodic, and ceasing, in fact, to be 
 Poetry. The question is thus always to be 
 asked in regard of such a piece as the " Life- 
 Drama," Mr Dobell's " Balder," and other justly 
 so-called " Spasmodic Poems," how much that 
 seems violent and excessive in them is yet to 
 be justified as simple and proper reflex of 
 Spasmodic subject, at once truly expressive of 
 mental state, and subtly commended to feeling 
 by the reconcilement of the musical form — how 
 much is to be stigmatised as excessive under 
 conditions of excess — what in the book is 
 Poetry, in fact, as result of a truly imaginative 
 mastery of the wild mood— what sheer violence 
 of failure, betokening want of such mastery, and 
 wilful, irregular action in the mind of the writer 
 himself, as under tyranny of the mood, and thus 
 incapable of translating it for us into forms of 
 clear art ? And it is simply mere ignorance»to 
 pooh-pooh such Poetry as " Spasmodic," and 
 there an end ; seeing it may very well be Spas- 
 modic, and yet justly and nobly so, as much in 
 the "Life-Drama" is; much also in the Poem 
 of Mr Dobcll ; while in both there may be 
 something to be set aside as Spasmodic in the
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxi 
 
 wilful and bad sense. Such considerations did 
 not, however, disturb the pubHc in the new 
 turn that things had taken ; the word had no 
 meaning for it except as associated with Ay- 
 toun's dehghtfuUy ludicrous Parodies ; and to 
 call a writer " Spasmodic " was to dispose of 
 his claim as Poet, and simply laugh him out 
 of court. I do not think any one more heartily 
 than Smith himself — with his abundant sense of 
 humour — ^joined in Aytoun's laugh at his ex- 
 pense, and that of his friends ; and accordingly, 
 when he and the Professor came together — 
 as Mr Martin in his " Life " has noted — it was 
 into terms of very cordial kindness on both 
 sides that their intercourse speedily resolved 
 itself. 
 
 In aid of this little reaction which had thus 
 set in, — just before the publication of the " City 
 Poems," came a serious impeachment of him, 
 as throughout no more than the merest Plagiary, 
 in a very ably-conducted and influential Literary 
 Journal ; and when his new Book appeared, the 
 charge was, in regard of it, renewed. The attack 
 upon the " Life-Drama " Smith took, to all ap- 
 pearance, with his usual imperturbable good- 
 humour. It brought him, I remember, a very
 
 Ixxii MEMOIR. 
 
 kind and beautiful letter from his friend Mr 
 Helps, not of condolence, but encouragement, 
 in case such a thing might be needed ; written 
 pretty much as an elder brother might have 
 written it ; and the receipt of which seemed to 
 give him more pleasure than the wound could 
 cause him pain, as salve of which it was in- 
 tended. One phrase of it clings to my memory, 
 to effect, that "really, if people at all were 
 critics, they should be able to distinguish be- 
 tween the man who conquers, and the man who 
 steals." When, however, the attack was re- 
 newed upon the " City Poems," and re-renewed, 
 for the first and only time I ever knew, or 
 could surmise it in him, he did indicate serious 
 irritation. It was not that for the thing in itself, 
 as before his peers, he greatly cared ; but he 
 very sharply saw that such a charge — if at all 
 held substantiated — tended to damage him with 
 the general public, and, prospectively, to touch 
 his pocket. 
 
 " Who steals my purse steals trash, etc., 
 
 But he who filches from me my good name, " etc. 
 
 It is the peculiarity of literary "good name," 
 more than of other kinds of it, that to filch from
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxiii 
 
 a man any of it is directly to operate upon his 
 purse ; and as to the purse being " trash," which 
 whoso will may steal, and welcome, this was 
 a height of philosophic elevation to which, if 
 Smith — as a man of narrow income, just married 
 — found himself unable to soar, I hope it may 
 not be accounted sin to him. His annoyance 
 was, however, transient ; and throughout he had 
 the comfort of finding himself tolerably well 
 defended. A little paper on the subject by the 
 facetious Mr Punch — for which I should suppose 
 
 I him indebted to Mr Shirley Brooks — was really 
 a complete redtictio ad absiirdum of the charge, 
 as made. Mr Lewes,' then editing the Leader, 
 from the more serious point of view, very gene- 
 rously and ably defended him ; and, no doubt, 
 there were others who drew the quill effectively 
 in his behalf. Still, beyond question, a very 
 considerable effect to his disfavour was pro- 
 duced ; with results more or less feelingly known 
 to Mr Macmillan, who had given ^200 for the 
 Book. Nor at this need one be much surprised ; 
 for the evidence produced against him —how- 
 ever little, when analysed, it could weigh with 
 any competent person — was really in mass, at 
 first sight, formidable and startling. And the
 
 Ixxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 first effect is everything for many readers ; not 
 caring to examine farther, and if they did, dis- 
 qualified by ignorance from arriving, without 
 assistance, at true views of any such matter. 
 The truth was, that not a few of the passages 
 cited were really reminiscent of things in the 
 Poet's reading, lingering in some blind corner of 
 the brain, and reproduced bona fide as his own, 
 in virtue of a memory at once tenacious and 
 treacherous ; and there is simply no poet what- 
 ever in whom instances of the like may not be 
 found. The great mass of the things produced 
 were in themselves quite too frivolous ; but at 
 times, in order to see ho%v frivolous, a little care 
 was needed ; and if this was not given, the 
 whole being indolently glanced over in the light 
 of these ujidcniable cases of obligation, the effect, 
 as regarded Smith, might very well be some- 
 what damaging. But while there seemed no 
 reason to question the perfect bona fides of the 
 writer, his laboured demonstration was, for any 
 reader of care and competence, even curiously 
 without result. Though quite without desire to 
 resuscitate extinct literary squabbles, I may as 
 well try, in some more formal Avay, to show 
 this ; the subject being in itself a somewhat
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxv 
 
 curious one, and not without interest* Here, 
 meantime, it is enough to say, that though the 
 ■vork Avas in many quarters very favourably 
 noticed, it could scarcely be said to succeed; the 
 enthusiasm excited by the " Life-Drama " was 
 gone, and not to be recalled. 
 Whatever the causes of this, they could scarcely 
 '' be said to lie in the Book itself, which indicates, 
 as compared with the first work, a clear advance 
 in the writer. For one thing, if " Spasmodic 
 Poetry" be objectionable, here, at least, there 
 was little, if anything, to be termed, without 
 the merest absurdity. Spasmodic. The youthful 
 heat and unrest are allayed ; the whole tone of 
 the book is milder, calmer, Aviser ; only in an 
 occasional tone of meditative melancl^oly is there 
 the least reminiscence of the old fever of dis- 
 content. As holding of this mellowed feeling, 
 there is a riper and purer finish ; the clear type 
 of individual style, with still some occasional 
 trace of imitation, is much more consistently 
 maintained ; there is greater refinement of 
 thoughtful analysis, a subtler interpretation of 
 nature, together with extended observation of 
 
 See Appendix.
 
 Ixxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 it, as also of the facts of life. In particular, the 
 fine lyric, " Glasgow," marked the point of im- 
 provement reached, and compelled the praise of 
 critics not otherwise specially disposed to praise. 
 But the public, it appeared, would not buy as 
 before ; the tide which came in so sweepingly 
 had turned, and was now running out ; with just 
 about as much reason in the phenomenon as 
 may go to the ebbing of waters. That " mis- 
 cellaneous rabble " (the phrase is Milton's) called 
 the " people," or public, is little at any time but 
 a rush of uncomprehending sheep — 
 
 " They praise, and they admire, they know not what, 
 And know not whom, but as one leads the other."* 
 
 Their ignorance on all matters relating to finer 
 culture is so total, that they are not even aware 
 of it. Hence their giddy judgments ; their help-' 
 less instability in opinions come at by hap- 
 hazard ; the absurd way in which they go a- 
 gadding after a new thing, and then go a-gad- 
 ding away from it ; so that their praise and their 
 censure are alike worthless, and they are never 
 in the right but by accident. 
 
 My reference to Mr Helps' letter may have 
 
 * " Paradise Regained."
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxvii 
 
 suggested that common source of interest in a 
 literary biography supplied by the author's cor- 
 respondence. In this case it is necessarily ab- 
 sent. A diligent search in the Poet's repositories 
 has been rewarded by only one letter. It is 
 from Mr Rarey, the American horse -tamer, 
 enclosing tickets to admit to the subjugation of 
 some local " Cruiser," and begging, " in the name 
 of the Great American People " (among whom, 
 by the way, Smith's works were always more 
 widely circulated than at home), to express his 
 gratitude, admiration, etc. Something, I sup- 
 pose, in the slight magniloquence of its terms 
 must have tickled the Poet a little, and led to 
 its preservation, in the disappearance of more 
 important, if perhaps less amusing, documents — 
 as notably this letter of Mr Helps ; one which 
 he had from Mr Tennyson, of a very pleasant and 
 cordial character ; the like from Mr Aubrey de 
 Vere — and what others such I know not, though 
 doubtless various such others there must have 
 been. Recognition of this clearly a laudato 
 kind always much gratified him, as no anony- 
 mous notice could ; and with frank pleasure he 
 would show the things to such of his friends as 
 he thought they would be likely to interest.
 
 Ixxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 That he should not have thought of preserving 
 them may be noted as a point of idiosyncrasy 
 in him, befitting his simple character. Another 
 point of idiosyncrasy must, however, be noted of 
 him, in regard of such things, of a much more 
 dreadful nature. He was almost sure never to 
 answer them. In two of the three cases above, 
 to my certain knowledge, no answer was re- 
 turned ; and it would almost surprise me to learn 
 that compliment had been vouchsafed in the 
 third. Savage incivility, the reader, of course, 
 thinks to himself — and yet in his tenderness and 
 just nicety of feeling, the man of anything like 
 wilful discourtesy was as incapable as of wilful 
 murder. That being of this strain, he should 
 have received such courteous, volunteered com- 
 munications ; been truly gratified by receipt of 
 them, showing them to a friend, mayhap, with 
 undissembled satisfaction ; yet habitually (I am 
 dreadfully afraid it was so) have neglected even 
 simple acknowledgment, does seem really strange 
 — one of those odd incongruities which so often 
 puzzle us in character. From my knowledge 
 of him, I partly to myself account for the 
 oddity thus : As a matter of course, intending 
 immediate answer, he yet did not quite know
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxix 
 
 how to set about it — disliked the complimentary 
 phrase-making, and suspicion of the claiu nic, 
 clazv t/icc, which tends a little to beset corre- 
 spondence of this particular kind — consequently, 
 put it off to be done " to-morrow," oblivious of 
 the obvious wisdom that duties to be done to- 
 morrow are not unlikely to impeach us at the 
 day of judgment as duties not at all done. The 
 document would thus be allowed to crumble 
 indefinitely about his pockets, his intentions 
 being all the while most virtuous ; finally, with 
 a certain insouciance natural to him, he would 
 some day light his pipe with it, in defect of 
 non-literary material, and the corpus delicti — so 
 to call it — being thus vanished, all hope in the 
 matter was over. His dereliction Avould con- 
 tinue, however, to distress him not a little, .so 
 that he especially detested reference to it by 
 any friend aware of the facts, and disposed, for 
 his good, to rally him on the subject. So much 
 for whom it may concern : it has seemed to me 
 a point to be explained. 
 
 As naturally suggested by this matter, admis- 
 sion may also be made in him of a certain care- 
 lessness, indifference — or what might very well 
 seem such- — in the conduct of his social relations
 
 Ixxx MEMOIR. 
 
 otherwise. He was by no means very careful 
 to cultivate people, and would drop somewhat 
 too readily out of the acquaintance even of 
 those — not chancing to come actually in contact 
 with him — who had been at express pains to 
 show him goodwill and kindness. Not that his 
 memory was ever liable to fail him on that side ; 
 but the past he did not seek, as he might have 
 done, to reproduce in the present. Neither 
 should I suppose him ever to have been speci- 
 ally eager to rush with his acknowledgments to 
 admirers, for their kindness in expressing ad- 
 miration of him. As to all this he somewhat 
 failed ; he failed, that is, precisely where the 
 courtesies of life are terribly apt to corrupt 
 themselves into the questionable arts of the 
 provident literary gentleman. These are suffi- 
 ciently understood ; any poor blockhead who 
 will may practise them ; and doing so with 
 sufficient diligence and astuteness, he may hold 
 himself an ill-used man, if some time, and for 
 some ten days of his life, he is not recognised as 
 a Genius. Of all this sort of thing Smith had 
 an honourable scorn ; and as deep in his quiet 
 nature there was a vein of impracticable pride, 
 he held himself utterly aloof from it. That in
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxxi 
 
 doing so he drew his line accurately — it is a 
 very fine line to draw — in common with others 
 of his friends, I do not quite think. Gratitude 
 has been defined an " acute sense of favours to 
 come." A good deal of what passes for grati- 
 tude, of course, is so ; yet the genuine article 
 exists, and may now and then be expressed, 
 without any compromise of character. So of 
 the other virtues ; each of them has some vile 
 impostor at its heels, in their deadly dislike of 
 which honest people have been known, at times, 
 to forget their fealty to the real thing. 
 
 A little disappointed perhaps — but not dis- 
 heartened, or moved any jot from the cheerful 
 tenor of his way — by the reception of the 
 " City Poems," Smith was now quietly at work 
 on his " Edwin of Deira." He chose the subject 
 thoughtfully, as knowing that his besetting sin 
 was a certain unstrictness and vagrancy — so call 
 it — a want of severity in the outline of sub- 
 stantial forms — and seeking without in the de- 
 fined Historic framework some supplement of 
 the deficiency within. (In this I simply in effect 
 repeat what I remember to have heard him say.) 
 In 1861 the Book was published, again by 
 Messrs Macmillan & Co. ; and on the whole it
 
 Ixxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 may be said to have been tolerably well re- 
 ceived, a second edition being within a reason- 
 able time called for. But it failed to reinstate 
 the Poet in his old place with either critics or 
 public. In one respect it must be held to have 
 been one of the most unfortunate of books. 
 Written in great part before Tennyson's " Idyls 
 of the King " (I myself had seen at least half of 
 it in MS., if not absolutely before Tennyson's 
 work was talked of, certainly before any hint of 
 its precise nature had reached the public, and 
 there are perhaps some three or four people in 
 Edinburgh who could in this corroborate me), it 
 was published some time after it. Not only did 
 it thus challenge a comparison with that master- 
 piece, but the inference was obvious and_/^z>, of 
 direct imitation ; and the hands of the detrac- 
 tors were strengthened who had more lately 
 been saying he could do nothing distinctively 
 his own, but only more or less cleverly follow 
 where cleverer fellows had led. This was simply 
 of the nature of misfortune for him ; and as 
 such, providentially sent him, he accepted it Mith 
 his admirable quietude, not needlessly kicking 
 against the pricks, yet not the less, doubtless, 
 in his soul, cursing it a little as true misfortune.
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxxiii 
 
 With Tennyson's consummate work, only an 
 injudicious admirer will think of comparing 
 "Edwin;" but Smith runs him perhaps a fair 
 second ; and I do not doubt the book would 
 have done better, had the public got it, as in 
 much written, before Tennyson's, not after. To 
 say sooth, the material seems, in parts, but im- 
 perfectly mastered ; yet the effect is on the whole 
 fine, and the book abounds in passages of beau- 
 tiful, and sometimes noble, poetry. Moreover, 
 apart from substantive success, the truth and 
 height of aim are, by comparison, to be recog- 
 nised ; and on the whole perhaps advance is again 
 to be noted. But the Poet's victory — if such to 
 be held — was like one of Napoleon's later vic- 
 tories — as at Bautzen, where the great Captain, 
 having driven his foes from the field, had to cry, 
 in passionate disgust, " What ! no prisoners ! no 
 guns ! no results! " The net result here to Smith 
 on the system of half profits — now adopted 
 — as given in a tragical Publisher's document 
 before me — was, for his really stiff spell of 
 anxious and careful work, precisely £i^, 5s. 3<^- 
 — absolutely only 5s. 3d. more than Milton, first 
 and last, had for his " Paradise Lost." For 
 Smith this was a " Paradise Lost" — the Paradise,
 
 Ixxxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 to wit, of Poetry, not farther on these bare terms 
 to be prosecuted by a gentleman of small income 
 unfortunately/;iY^;* of family only fixed in this 
 sense, that it was fixed by fate as always steadily 
 on the increase. Some " Paradise Regained" of 
 Prose was thus now the thing to be aimed at. 
 With Prose he had, ere this, somewhat begun to 
 concern himself. And now, he very steadily 
 betook himself to it ; writing of the other and 
 always dearer thing, only such an occasional 
 lyric or the like as " came to him," and coming, 
 could in no wise be cast out. If a Poet— one of 
 the born breed, who " sings but as the linnet 
 sings"— could subsist himself as the linnet does 
 by pecking easily about the hedge-rows, the 
 arrangement might have its advantages ; but it 
 has not been so ordered. Not even Mr Tenny- 
 
 • Let me be exact as to this. Originally, as said, his income 
 was ;^iSO. More lately, by increase which accrued to him as 
 Registrar and Secretary to the University Council, it amounted 
 to C^QO. As economics are in question, it may farther be ex- 
 plained, as illustrating the necessity under which he latterly 
 found himself of drudging pretty hard With his pen, that his own 
 immediate and increasing family expenses were by no means the 
 sole claim upon him. To others he was fairly liable ; and once, ■ 
 in particular, had to fit out and send to India one of his younger 
 brothers, in itself a somewhat serious pull upon a purse no better 
 furnished than his.
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxxv 
 
 son, I expect, finds that he can pay his butcher 
 with an autograph, unless it be written on the 
 duly stamped cheque of some Bank, in which he 
 has a deposit. So with Smith and his butcher ; 
 and as poetry would not pay the butcher, prose 
 now must. In prose he had a graceful and facile 
 gift ; and he speedily found that for what he 
 might write there was always ready market, and 
 gratifying acceptance with the public. His 
 books may rapidly be chronicled — which, how- 
 ever, give only the faintest notion of the quantity 
 of work produced ; what might, by comparison, 
 be termed the spray of his mind being thrown off 
 besides constantly and in various directions. In 
 1863 appeared "Dreamthorp" (published by 
 Messrs Strahan) a volume of delightful "Essays," 
 embodying in parts a great deal of really fine 
 and subtle thinking, and written throughout in a 
 style of much grace and sweetness, delicately 
 shimmering from time to time with the lights of 
 essential poetry. It seems to me that, of all his 
 books, this has most of himself in it ; gives the 
 most express image of the man as he was to those 
 who best knew him ; of his quiet, hearty ways, his 
 lurking humour, the general effect of geniality 
 
 he produced ; geniality sweetly acidulated — were 
 
 F 2
 
 Ixxxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 such a phrase to be permitted — with a cynicism 
 never untender. So long as the world may 
 chance to want reading of this particular kind, it 
 might do worse than remember " Drcamthorp." 
 Meantime, it was a highly successful book, and 
 achieved a wide circulation. " The Summer in 
 Skye" (also by Messrs Strahan) followed in 
 1 865 ; and as written thoroughly con avtore, as it 
 could not fail to be, on a subject very near his 
 heart, it had at least equal success. No one 
 should visit the island without scanning its 
 vivid and charming pages. Written originally, 
 however, in two volumes, and not as at first 
 he had himself proposed, in one, it contains 
 at the beginning and the end a good deal of 
 extraneous matter, not in itself to be wished 
 away, yet which has not always delighted 
 purchasers careless of Literature, who bought 
 it on trust of its title page, for severe busi- 
 ness purpose of a Guide Book. Neither as 
 such, in its Skye portion, will it quite bear to be 
 regarded with strictly a business eye. In this 
 same year was produced by Messrs Macmillan 
 an edition of Burns edited by him, to which was 
 prefixed an extended and elaborate Memoir, 
 which, after all that has been written on its
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxxvii 
 
 subject by men very famous indeed, bears ex- 
 ceedingly well perusal. To the whole there was 
 added a Glossary on some new and complex 
 principle, which cost him a deal of pains ; in fact, it 
 bored him dreadfully, and he growled a good deal 
 over it, while admitting that in strictness he ought 
 not to growl, as having for the total performance 
 very liberal solatium from the publisher. 
 
 Meantime, from month to month, in the pages 
 of " Good Words," was appearing his little story, 
 " Alfred Hagart's Household." This, too, he had 
 planned as one volume ; but the publisher, find- 
 ing it a highly popular item of the Magazine, 
 prevailed on him to extend it into two, very 
 obviously to its detriment, the later portions — in 
 themselves inferior — but indifferently coalescing 
 with the first. This work he undertook as simply 
 a tentative of what he might be able to do in 
 fiction. There is in it a great deal of tender, 
 quiet sketching, both pathetic and humorous, 
 with nice apergus of character ; and especially 
 it seems to succeed in its renderings of child- 
 nature, than success in which there is perhaps no 
 
 more decisive guarantee of the true gift of a 
 subtle humane insight. With the reception ac- 
 corded to the book, he had every reason to be
 
 Ixxxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 gratified ; and it was in this field that his next, 
 and more serious effort would have been made — 
 there seems every reason to believe, with good 
 and effective result. Whilst death was unawares 
 busy with him, he was maturing the scheme of a 
 Novel on the understood scale. As knowing 
 himself a little shaky on the constructive side, 
 he said he did not mean to write a word till he 
 had got the whole thing, to some distinct and 
 satisfactory extent, imaginatively made compact 
 within him. Thus, so far as is known, nothing 
 of it was ever written. All I know of it is, that it 
 would have included a Scotch element. About 
 the very last time I dined with him, I remember 
 retailing a highly ludicrous scene I had just 
 chanced to be witness of, illustrating the fierce 
 theological proclivities of the Scottish carter; 
 and the little amusement it caused being over, I 
 generously said, " I don't mind making you a 
 present of that for your novel, Smith ! " " Thank 
 you for nothing, old fellow !" with base ingrati- 
 tude he answered, " I spotted it as it left your 
 lips ; and one or other of these fine days, per- 
 haps you'll see it in print." This was, however, 
 not to be. 
 
 Within the space of time indicated, there is
 
 MEMOIR. Ixxxix 
 
 given in the above, a fair modicum of work ; and 
 as before said, it was only a tithe of that really- 
 done. Of this other desultory business no ac- 
 count need be attempted. From the time of his 
 decisively taking to prose, as, after all, the thing 
 to boil the pot by, his irons in the fire were al- 
 ways numerous. For three Encyclopedias, in 
 succession, he did a good deal of work — Mac- 
 kenzie s Biographical, the Britannica, and Cham- 
 bers s — the Editor of the last of which, the ex- 
 cellent and accomplished Dr Findlater — from 
 the old Raleigh Club time, one of his fastest 
 friends — used to say that, for neat, felicitous, 
 carefully-condensed work on the prescribed con- 
 ditions — by comparison, of some brevity — he had 
 no such literary contributor. Of Magazines, 
 Newspapers, and so forth, it need only be said 
 they were numerous. 
 
 One newspaper only need be particularised — 
 the Caledonian Mercury — an otherwise unnotice- 
 able organ, now defunct — to which, in mere love 
 of the thing (though paid, of course), he from 
 year to year contributed notices of the Royal 
 Academy Pictures — bright, easy, lively sketching 
 and criticism, such as not many newspapers fa- 
 vour their readers with on that particular topic.
 
 xc 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 Of Art, in the technical sense, he made small 
 profession of knowledge, eschewing the wretched 
 jargon supposed to indicate knowledge; but 
 from their intellectual side as Poetry he read 
 pictures with a subtlety somewhat rare ; and 
 even of the technical business, en amateur, knew 
 probably a good deal. Almost all the artists 
 he knew, so as to drop in at their studios ; with 
 not a few of them he was intimate ; and Horatio 
 Macculloch, not improbably the greatest master 
 of landscape who ever touched a brush in Scot- 
 land, was, as it were, a sort of elder brother to 
 him. They lived only some. quarter of a mile 
 apart ; and when not found at home of a Satur- 
 day or Sunday afternoon, he was nearly sure to 
 be found smoking in Macculloch's studio, ex- 
 changing easy talk with the artist, as, under the 
 deft hand, the landscape grew upon the canvas. 
 For artists, as a class, as I before said, he had 
 always rather a liking ; their careless, pleasantly- 
 Bohemian ways suited him somewhat better 
 than those of men of business. 
 
 Properly, his love of Art was one with his 
 deep instinctive feehng for Nature ; as indeed in 
 a man of any culture, the presence of the last, in 
 any force, will more or less imply the other. Mr
 
 MEMOIR. xci 
 
 James Hannay, in a tender and graceful re- 
 miniscence of him, contributed to " Cassells' 
 Magazine," has said that his was "a life of 
 which enjoyment of Nature formed a great part." 
 Nothing can be more true ; if at all you knew 
 him, you knciv this ; though it was not quite 
 easy to say how you could come by your know- 
 ledge, as of anything like expressed rapture and 
 rhapsody on this, as on the other understood 
 topics for such, he was always entirely innocent. 
 He was one of those invaluable men, with 
 whom it was possible to walk for an hour or so 
 through a beautiful stretch of landscape, and be 
 bored with no single exclamation about it. For 
 which precise reason you kneiv, as I said, that 
 in soul he exulted and expatiated. As in fact it 
 might be gathered from his books, it was some- 
 what less in the severer beauty of form than in 
 the festal glory of colour superinduced, that by 
 instinct he took delight — a fact perhaps to be 
 noted as not wholly without pertinence to his 
 writings, as giving — by analogy — the key to 
 somewhat of their beauty, if also to somewhat 
 of their defect. A silence utter and total on 
 such subjects he did not enforce upon himself ; 
 and now and then one admired the watchful
 
 xcil MEMOIR. 
 
 exactitude of his eye for nice minutiae of this 
 kind. Thus — merely as an instance — once in 
 late autumn, as we lay, smoking and silent, on 
 the hill above Bonaly — the noble landscape 
 stretched beneath, with the fretted outline of 
 the city bounding it, and beyond, far reaches 
 of shining sea, in dim distance wedded with 
 the sky — he said suddenly: " Oh ! look at these 
 sprays of birch there between us and the tints 
 of far sky ; don't they look as if they would 
 drip pii7-plc wine to us ?'' — adding, with one of 
 the whimsical turns familiar to those who knew 
 him, "I wish to heaven they would!" Very 
 cordially echoing the wish, I looked, and saw 
 that he had photographed the effect in words, 
 as probably his friend Macculloch would have 
 given £iOQto be able to put it on canvas. 
 
 For something more than a year before his 
 death, it was known to his friends that all was 
 not strictly right with him. While looking well 
 and rosy — of which he would humorously com- 
 plain as a great aggravation of his distress — he 
 had strange nervous distempef-atures — unac- 
 countable panic would beset him at times ; at 
 other times he would suddenly feel as if the solid 
 earth had gone from beneath his feet, and he
 
 MEMOIR. xciii 
 
 was insecurely walking on clouds — so insecurely, 
 indeed, that he had hastily to throw himself into 
 a cab, etc., etc. One sees it all now with doleful 
 clearness. His brain had been overworked ; had 
 in some sense given way, and needed entire rest. 
 And if his brain would decisively have given 
 way, thus making rest imperative, he might now 
 have been alive and with us. But the unhappy 
 brain would not do this ; and so long as it did 
 not fail him, his sense of duty would insist on 
 woi^king it. And all the time he looked so well 
 that, thinking his complaint some form of mere 
 hypochondria, in one's wisdom, as thinking this 
 the scientific treatment of the disorder, one 
 rather fleered at than sympathised with him. 
 These points of supposed wit at the time are not 
 now very amusing, and need not be here com- 
 memorated. 
 
 In August 1866, he took his last holiday, 
 which, it was hoped, might do him good ; but, 
 alas ! even in the wilds, his inevitable Devil (the 
 Printer's) more or less continued to haunt him ; 
 and he returned not much renovated. There is 
 evidence he had become seriously uneasy about 
 himself It has often been noted how frequently 
 in his writings there appears a melancholy brood-
 
 XCIV 
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 ing over death ; and in the " Spring Chanson," 
 at the close of the Book, written in May of the 
 year, this recurs so strangely as to suggest dis- 
 tinct prescience of the coming doom. Very 
 touching is it now to note, how the cheery tone 
 of Spring, with which it opens, as a forced and 
 artificial gaiety, imperceptibly, as quite unwilfully, 
 slides into the autumn sombreness, and sugges- 
 tions of decay and death. Some little time 
 before he was taken ill, he called on his friend 
 Mr J. F. M'Lennan, Advocate, very well known 
 to Anthropologists as author of a work on " Pri- 
 mitive Marriage," and otherwise as writer of the 
 "Life of Henry Drummond," and asked instruc- 
 tions as to the making of his will, saying that he 
 " felt death in him." The instructions, as a matter 
 of course, he got ; and almost equally, as matter 
 of course, proceeded not to make the will. This 
 was about the opening of the winter session in 
 November, which always involved for him hard, 
 continuous, and somewhat harassing work. He 
 was looking as fresh and well as ever in his life ; 
 and to no .soul could it be evident that he should 
 not undertake it as usual— as accordingly he did. 
 But it might seem to have been too much for 
 him. Shortly after we heard he was laid up ill ;
 
 MEMOIR. xcv 
 
 then that his illness was serious ; then that it 
 had determined itself into typhoid fever, com- 
 plicated with diphtheria. One of these might 
 have been enough for him to struggle with ; both 
 of them proved too much. He was laid up on 
 the 20th November; on the morning of 5th Janu- 
 ary 1867 he quite peacefully died, with those he 
 loved watching round him. It is needless to 
 say that, throughout his illhess, he had the best 
 medical advice which Edinburgh could bestow 
 (and in the world there is perhaps no better), 
 the best tendance which could be furnished by 
 the solicitudes of those who loved him. But all 
 would not avail ; he died, as above said. 
 
 How does one feel on such an occasion } 
 Taking a survey of the survivors, a little bewil- 
 dered, like Lear, and not quite able to grasp the 
 "dispensation:" 
 
 " Why should a clog, a horse, a rat have life, 
 And thou no breath at all ?" 
 
 Of the blank which was left by his death in the 
 very wide circle of his friends, I do not in the 
 least care to write. Of the blank yet deeper 
 and sadder in the circle of those to whom he was 
 endeared by ties yet closer and dearer, no sen-
 
 xcvi MEMOIR. 
 
 sible person will ever in any such case even 
 dream of trying to write. Where, in truth, can 
 ever be the sense or the use of such a thing- ? 
 The love which is true, deep, and unselfish, is 
 in secret its own best comforter ; and, in subtle 
 and unsuspected ways, ministers to itself a finer 
 and softer solace than sympathy, so called, can 
 ever do, imperfect when most sincere. In the 
 memory of the loved and lost — 'When the agony 
 of the ivj'cnch is overpast — a " tender grace" and 
 charm abides, making sadness, and sorrow itself, 
 as precious as the living joy. The music is, 
 indeed, for ever dead upon the strings ; but they 
 cannot cease to vibrate strangely to echoes of it, 
 lingering and far prolonged, and infinitely tender 
 and sweet. 
 
 Yet if sympathy, idle as in much it always is, 
 may now and then be held appropriate, here it 
 was surely due. Within two days of Smith's 
 death, news from Skye arrived that good old 
 Ord — Mrs Smith's father — was also suddenly 
 dead. Her mother she had lost only three 
 months before. Only some two months later, 
 beside poor Smith, where he sleeps, was laid 
 his eldest born ; his first little pet daughter 
 Flora, whose arrival is so sweetly alluded to in
 
 MEMOIR. xcvii 
 
 his beautiful lyric " Blaavin." Seldom to any- 
 household comes so sore a complication of be- 
 reavement. Except as it is mercifully ap- 
 pointed that great sorrows coming together in 
 some strange way absorb and neutralise one 
 another, people in such wretched conjunctions 
 as this would have either to go mad or die. 
 
 Of Shakespeare as a man we know but little ; 
 and those of us who make a point of never 
 writing of him, except as always and in every- 
 thing " Divine," do not know much more of him 
 as a Poet. What is known of Shakespeare as a 
 man amounts to little more than this — that 
 nearly every one who knew him loved him. As 
 to tJiis the consensus of testimony is complete. 
 The greatest Genius of all time was not, as such, 
 at all known or cared for at " the Mermaid." 
 Had you under that title asked for him at the 
 door there, it is quietly my own notion Ben 
 Jonson would have probably come reeling out 
 upon you. He was known there as "sweet 
 Will Shakespeare," " gentle ^N\\\ ;" or, as Spenser, 
 in his " Tears of the Muses," calls him., " Our 
 pleasant Willy."* How sweetly seems the phrase 
 
 * It has been maintained that Spenser's reference here is to 
 Sydney as " Willy," a supposed shepherd in a pastoral ; and
 
 xcviii MEMOIR. 
 
 to fondle him! — "our Willy!" What nice in- 
 sinuation of heart in that! — yours and mine; 
 our own true friend and brother. So, most 
 emphatically, also of Alexander Smith. It 
 was never alleged, even by the most ecstatic 
 of his earlier critics, that, in point of Genius, 
 Smith was quite equal to Shakespeare ; but 
 if I am willing to suppose that Shakespeare — 
 as " sweet" and " gentle" I do not greatly 
 doubt as lie — was also as true, and honest, 
 and good, I consider I pay Shakespeare a very 
 high compliment indeed. None of Smith's 
 friends that I know of ever made much of his 
 Genius ; nor is it worth while at all to speak of 
 it here. That he %oas, in some very distinct 
 sense, a man of Genius, I myself do not doubt, 
 nor would I care to argue the matter with a 
 critic who should dispute the claim for him. As 
 to the precise nature and limits of his Genius — 
 how far he effectively utilised it — and the sub- 
 stantive value of the results a? they lie before 
 
 it is alleged, in proof of this, that Sydney elsewhere undeniably 
 is so alluded to. The context looked to, the thing will not 
 bear two minutes' discussion. That Shakespeare is here intended, 
 is as unquestionable as if it had never been questioned, or could 
 be so.
 
 MEMOIR. xcix 
 
 us, there may quite reasonably be room for con- 
 siderable differences of opinion. But about his 
 Genius, as I said, his friends never greatly cared : 
 it was seldom made subject of conversation to 
 him ; and when I said that the one man he 
 rather eschewed was the prolix and wise bore 
 and blockhead, I forgot that there was another — 
 the fool who might be feared, as likely to voci- 
 ferate applause upon him. This kind of person, 
 I rather think, if sufficiently diligent in his opera- 
 tions, could have caused him rather sharp annoy- 
 ance. It is almost needless to say, the circle of 
 his friends — properly so called — included no 
 such nuisance. It included, on the other hand, 
 several Aristarchs, whose cool insolence to him, 
 in such matters, nearly rivalled that of his early 
 friend Macdonald ; and with whom he was 
 always delighted to discuss the points of criti- 
 cism, perfectly resolute where he felt himself to 
 be in the right — candid as the day in admission 
 of any little flaw, which, as really such, he would 
 recognise with curiously exceptional readiness. 
 
 The best thing ever likely to be said of 
 Smith's genius is, that those — and there were 
 many such — who, because of it, were led to 
 make his acquaintance, so soon as they sue-
 
 MEMOIR. 
 
 ceeded in doing so, found that they forgot all 
 about it ; that the "Author of the ' Life-Drama' " 
 presently came to seem to them a comparatively 
 poor creature, and, indeed, disappeared entirely, 
 leaving behind him, as substitute, "the human- 
 hearted man we loved." It would not, I think, 
 have been possible to find a man more entirely 
 simple and amiable. Great warmth of affection ; 
 great truth of it (the two are unhappily not 
 always conjoined) ; and, as holding of truth, 
 steadfastness— \\(is was the man's deepest and 
 most distinctive peculiarity. He could as little 
 have been untrue to a friend, as unworthily have 
 befouled an enemy (supposing him to have had 
 one, of which I am not aware). Friendship may 
 in two ways be compromised. You may have 
 done something so dreadful — swindled your 
 creditors, let us say— as to make all discreet 
 Christians shy of you. Even had he chanced 
 to be a creditor, I don't think that with Smith a 
 little peccadillo of this kind would have made 
 any very great difference. He was no very 
 rigorous censor morum ; of any mores, that is, 
 except his own, of which he always made excel- 
 lent censorship. On that side you might con- 
 sider yourself pretty safe with him. On the
 
 MEMOIR. ci 
 
 other side, of small touchiness in himself; sus- 
 picions ; uneasy broodings and hatchings over 
 questionable points of conduct which might 
 seem to require explanation, you might hold 
 yourself equally safe. There was a certain 
 largeness of nature in the man — a magnanimity,* 
 I will say — it is a dreadfully big word to use, 
 yet the right one — which made him free of all 
 that sort of thing — the poison of noble inter- 
 course. Consequently, admitted to his friend- 
 ship, you might consider you were in for a spell 
 of it ; in fact, there did not seem any way in 
 
 * In the excellent Memoir of Smith — of which I have every- 
 where freely made use — contributed to Good Words by his friend 
 Mr Alexander Nicholson, Skye-man and Advocate, this word 
 "magnanimous" is used of him. I quite remember, in reading 
 it, recognising its fine pertinence — though surely never among 
 men can so grand a virtue have exhibited itself in more still and 
 simple guise. Magnanimity ! largeness of soul and nature ; that 
 elevated cast of mind, to which, precisely because great things 
 are great, little things are little ! It is not a British virtue — our 
 whole Society being obviously ruled on the principle, that little 
 things being accounted great, great things are to be held little. 
 Oddly enough, Smith had it ; and it is really so much a virtue, 
 that almost a Vice with it is better than a Virtue 'cuithoiit. The 
 things which were great to him were Poetry, and generally the 
 intellectual business, prosecuted simply and for itself ; this, and 
 what with him was fundamental to this, duty and the quick 
 life of the affections. So far as I could ever read the man, 
 nothing else was of any really vital concernment to him. 
 
 G 2
 
 cii MEMOIR. 
 
 which, had you even wished it so, the relation 
 could ever, as the lawyers say, " cease and deter- 
 mine." It would not have been quite easy so to 
 offend Smith as to lead him to perpetrate rup- 
 ture with one whom he held his friend. Some sort 
 of obviously studied and deliberate ifisiilt to him, 
 would, in fact, have been your only way out of 
 the entanglement. In years of close intercourse 
 with him, I cannot remember that ever there 
 came between us so much as a start or flaw 
 of uneasiness — no mighty inference of virtue, I 
 admit, on the one side, but more or less, I should 
 really fear, on the other. And I am nearly 
 positive, every other friend he had of tried 
 standing would say precisely the same thing.* 
 
 * As instance of his tolerance in such a relation, I remember 
 that once in a skittish mood, I expressly satirized him in the 
 columns of the Scotsman — which in Edinburgh is somewhat as 
 if in London you found, on going to your Club, all the readers 
 of the Times on the giggle at you. It was a propos of some poor 
 American Poet who had plainly gone mad over the "Life- 
 Drama;" and I said that, as the unhappy creature was no doubt 
 ere this in a strait-waistcoat, with his mother weeping over him, 
 Mr Smith had really a great deal to answer for ; moreover, that 
 if Mr Smith would glance into the work, perhaps it might be of 
 use to him, as seeing in it — pretty much as one's fine features are 
 given back to one in a silver spoon — something much more likely 
 to do him good than anything he ever saw in his mirror of a 
 morning — some wretched ribaldry of that kind. This he did
 
 MEMOIR. ciii 
 
 And in this, his extreme amiabihty, he was 
 really entitled to some credit ; for, as one of the 
 "genus irritable" there was in him a thrill of 
 irritable fibre, making him one with others of 
 the race, wretched themselves by reason of it — 
 combined with a small self-seeking vanity — and 
 ministers of wretchedness to others. But as 
 having in him no taint of the last, the other was 
 in Smith so neutralised, that it would not sur- 
 prise me to learn I am held to do him wrong, in 
 hinting here that he had any of it. Neither was 
 his almost unfailing mildness that of a weak ^nd 
 negative nature incapable of a manly self-asser- 
 
 not quite relish. " O, hang it !" he said to a friend, " this is 
 going a Httle too far. Hang me, if I stand this kind of thing. 
 I must really pull the fellow up." When I met him, and asked 
 if he had seen the compliment I had paid him, he said — trying 
 to pinch his bland face into a just severity, and almost ludicrously 
 failing : " O yes — I've seen it — and it's all very funny, no doubt" 
 (a fine broad grin of forgiveness expanding over his features ;) 
 very clever, I dare say, you think it ; but just don't do it again, 
 old fellow ! that's all. If you do — " the dreadful threat was 
 never uttered ; he knew it would only be laughed at ; farther, he 
 knew as well as I did, that if the thing were next week repeated, 
 it could lead to nothing but a repetition of the easy transaction 
 in progress. It was not by a little offence of this kind, repeated 
 as often as you pleased, that you could have forfeited the good- 
 will of Alexander Smith, or stirred into any kind of gall against 
 you that sweetness which was born in the blood.
 
 civ MEMOIR. 
 
 tion. He could assert himself pretty promptly 
 on occasion ; and more than once I have known 
 him do so, manifestly much to the surprise of the 
 person — and it did not greatly matter who he was 
 — who found himself — metaphorically, of course, 
 — so sharply taken by the throat. Insult he 
 would have brooked from no man ; but he must 
 have been almost a brute who would have 
 offered offence in this kind to one himself so 
 inoffensive. 
 
 Yet, if I should suspect a fault in him, it was 
 here, in a certain deficiency in the acrid and evil 
 emotions. He did not make any enemies. I 
 wish he had made z.few; only one or two to go 
 about expressing an active detestation of him, 
 would a little, in my mind, have contributed a 
 finishing grace to his character. I could never 
 quite catch his secret ; or see how it was he con- 
 trived to go about and never make himself dis- 
 agreeable to anybody — in a world, too, abounding 
 with malefactors, to whom it is almost one's duty 
 to be disagreeable. Partly, perhaps, this helped 
 him to it : he was a man not heavily weighted 
 with convictions. In politics, for instance — the 
 great Whig and Tory wrangle — his interest was 
 precisely — nil. I don't think he ever even read 
 
 I
 
 MEMOIR. cv 
 
 these " Speeches" other people make so much of; 
 and perhaps, in his intellectual developments, he 
 did not by this greatly suffer. With Religion, as 
 a topic of social discussion, he quite declined to 
 meddle ; indeed, as such, he plainly disliked the 
 subject, and, keeping himself carefully away 
 from it, naturally avoided all risk of incurring 
 the savage ill-will of those with whom he might 
 have chanced to differ on some trivial point of 
 docrma or other. Elsewhere it was the same. 
 The proposition that Man is a developed Mollusc, 
 when laid down over the wine and walnuts, 
 stirred in him no vehemence of angry antipathy. 
 Badgered into saying something of it, he would 
 probably say he knew that Man was Man, and did 
 not care to know any more, that being the really 
 important article of belief ; — farther, perhaps, that, 
 so far as he could see, nobody ever wouldknov^ any 
 more. On all such questions of the Mollusc, he 
 himself was so perfectly a molluscous animal, he 
 almost went some way to prove the theory. As 
 to the claims of the Nigger again, his indifference 
 was entire and contemptuous ; but he would 
 allow the fiery Abolitionist to rage along upon 
 his sable hobby perfectly unchecked — not caring 
 enough about the matter, one way or the other,
 
 cvi MEMOIR. 
 
 to lead him at all to interfere in it. And the 
 " Nigger" may stand as representative of all the 
 other great " Causes" which set men together by 
 the ears. I fear he was but a cool philanthropist 
 in anything of the large and sublime sense ; 
 and I can suppose him giving now and then a 
 penny to a poor starving child in the street, 
 who reminded him of his little ones at home, 
 though doubtless theoretically aware that in so 
 doing, precisely to the extent of the penny's 
 worth, he was sacrificing " the happiness of the 
 greatest number." Nothing of all this am I 
 alleging as if in his honour ; something is per- 
 haps to be said for it, and, 'undoubtedly, a good 
 deal against. I am simply noting that this was 
 the kind of man he was, and explaining to my- 
 self how it was that — as with no outfit of fana- 
 tical convictions of his own — he could go on 
 so quietly as he did, not treading upon other 
 people's gouty toes of conviction, and thus sin- 
 gularly without offence to any one. Of all good 
 Scotchmen born, surely Alexander Smith was the 
 very least of a Fanatic, either in the good or the 
 bad sense ; and verily he had his reward, in the 
 cloudless and beautiful serenity throughout, of 
 his relations with his fellow-men.
 
 MEMOIR. cvii 
 
 In his way of life, by testimony of all who 
 ever knew him, Smith was throughout a man of 
 unusual discretion and correctness, tried by the 
 strictest conventional standard ; and here also 
 he had some credit, inasmuch as his correctness 
 was wisdom of strong self-rule, and by no means 
 the merely negative virtue, bred of thinness and 
 meagreness of nature, and lack of all exuberance 
 of impulse. There was in him no taint of the 
 Puritan ; and of "the gifts the gods provide" he 
 had a genial and manly enjoyment ; but he 
 used them as not abusing, and seldom, indeed, 
 in anything, was known to transgress the rule of 
 the Jie quid niinis. That now and then, and as 
 merely in the round of human experience, he 
 may have "heard the chimes at midnight," is 
 assumed in this, as matter of course. So sedate 
 a man, in fact, was he that, on this ground, his 
 title to rank as a Genius has seriously been called 
 in question. Only the other evening, I heard 
 one of his oldest friends — a Genius somewhat 
 eccentric — depreciate his Poetry from this 
 point of view. His notion was, that Genius in 
 general, and Poetical power in particular, are of 
 needs allied with the more desperate forms of 
 blackguardism ; and this he went on to illustrate
 
 cviii MEMOIR. 
 
 copiously from the records left us of the Gifted. 
 Consequently — such was his line of reasoning — 
 as Smith's dearest friend could not make out 
 any case for a moment to be listened to, entitling 
 him to rank as a scoundrel, the inference was 
 clear — the critics must have made a mistake in 
 supposing he could possibly be a Poet. The 
 syllogism seems to be perfect ; and certainly, if 
 its Major be admitted, the Minor being quite 
 indisputable, the conclusion was, by rigour of 
 logic, arrived at. On the other hand, Smith's 
 Genius being admitted to start with, his friend's 
 Major premiss of Theory might be held, by 
 equal rigour of logic, demolished. And what- 
 ever we make of this Theory of Genius being a 
 mode of blackguardism — there seems to be a 
 good deal in it, if we do not push it too far — it 
 received no countenance whatever from the 
 practice of Alexander Smith. If it be critically 
 ruled, that on that account he cannot have been 
 a man of Genius, be it so. He did not leave 
 behind him a friend who, from this point of 
 view, however anxious to do so, can find a word 
 to say for his Poetry. 
 
 Having said so much of him, it is almost 
 needless I should say farther, that Smith was
 
 MEMOIR. cix 
 
 one of the most delightful of companions. In 
 anything like formal company — for which he 
 did not greatly care — he was not rightly to be 
 relished, though he can scarce anywhere have 
 been held to be otherwise than a pleasant and 
 agreeable man. But in any little circle of his 
 intimates, he radiated round him warmth and 
 easy satisfaction. When I knew him in his early 
 days, an occasional mood of gloom and abstrac- 
 tion might be noted in him ; and half suspecting 
 him at times of doing the " Author of the Life- 
 Drama " upon us, I took the liberty to quiz him 
 accordingly, when we had become sufficiently 
 intimate. (I need not say how completely, on 
 farther acquaintance, I acquitted him of any 
 such affectation.) In his later time, these moods 
 — slight and transient as they were — had quite 
 disappeared, and his was eminently, and at all 
 times, a cheery presence — though, by nature au 
 fond, I should suppose him to have been always 
 a somewhat brooding, meditative, and sad man. 
 This only revealed itself, however, in the pleasant 
 reaction and protest of Jiianour, which was one of 
 the ruling qualities of his mind, and, had he lived, 
 would probably more and more have announced 
 itself dominant. As it is, in anything he wrote,
 
 ex MEMOIR. 
 
 there is only some hint or suggestion of his 
 really fine gift in that direction. Characteristi- 
 cally, his humour was of the quiet and not of the 
 explosive sort ; anything ludicrous — and in this 
 kind he missed nothing — you could see he was 
 rolling quietly under his tongue, as it were ; 
 nursing it as a nice morsel, till he had sucked 
 its inmost sweet. It was rather by sympathy 
 with this in him, than in anything he would 
 actively produce to make you " roar and laugh," 
 as they say, that his humour became enjoyable ; 
 and how enjoyable it was, how pleasantly it 
 flavoured the man, so to speak, interfused as a 
 genial element throughout his whole speech and 
 ways, all his really close friends must forget him 
 — if that in the least were possible — before they 
 cease to remember. Of his conversation a word 
 or two may suffice. On his return from London, 
 on my asking him about that of Mr Helps, he 
 answered as nearly as possible thus : " Pretty 
 much what his books would have led me expect 
 of him — not specially remarkable, as not at all 
 caring to be so — ^just the careless, easy, intelli- 
 gent talk of a cultivated English gentleman, 
 with now and then a noticeably good and happy 
 thing dropped lightly into it unawares, and as if
 
 MEMOIR. cxi 
 
 he himself did not know ; " and some instances 
 of these he gave, which I don't remember, and 
 ought not to repeat if I did. This seems pretty- 
 narrowly to hit his own perfectly unstudied, 
 unsolicitous, carelessly-articulated talk. In its 
 way it was very pleasant ; most so, perhaps, 
 when by himself you could get him to flow forth 
 to any extent on matters literary. On Poetry 
 in particular, it might well be supposed preg- 
 nant, as, with a very nice critical eye, he had 
 read widely and exactly. I should suppose him 
 to have been in this branch one of the very best 
 read men in Scotland. And in the other literary 
 branches, if not so supremely, he was yet un- 
 usually well informed. One only he eschewed, 
 somewhat as by instinct an animal declines a 
 food unsuited to it — Metaphysics and Mental 
 Philosophy. Of these he declined to talk, ex- 
 cept in terms of obstinate distaste and con- 
 tempt. As to reading anything of the kind, not 
 even a strong call of duty and friendship — as 
 when possibly one or other of his allies, casually 
 immersed in these bewilderments, would present 
 him with a poor little volume — could prevail with 
 him to seriously attempt such a thing. He would 
 profess to have tried to read ; and his criticism
 
 cxii MEMOIR. 
 
 would, on such an occasion, be thus compendi- 
 ously conveyed : " Do you really suppose, my 
 good fellow, that I'm going to bother my brain 
 with stuff of tliat kindV-' — this with a certain 
 vice, as if he really resented the waste of time 
 incurred in his abortive attempt. This obstinate 
 antipathy always struck me as curious ; inas- 
 much as readers who know such a thing when 
 they see it, will frequently take note in his 
 writings of a nice philosophic intuition. But of 
 anything like exact logical process he was in- 
 tolerant. Consequently, he hated argument on 
 all subjects ; on religious topics more particu- 
 larly ; and, indeed, about religion he almost 
 utterly declined, in any form whatever, to talk. 
 He has been styled a " reticent" man ; this, I 
 think, he only otherwise was, as not insisting 
 on boring his friends with matters which were 
 strictly his own concern : but on tliis subject he 
 1VCLS reticent to a degree. It showed his strong 
 good sense, I think ; as not likely to throw any 
 new lights upon the subject, it was as well for 
 him to hold his peace about it. Doubtless he 
 thought much of it, saying, as he did, so little. 
 That his mode of thought was entirely reverent ; 
 that of wreverence you heard from himself no
 
 MEMOIR. cxiii 
 
 word ; that he disHked it in others, and actively 
 detested it when so expressed as to take any 
 form of social outrage ; that, finally, he was no 
 very positive Philosopher, or " intellectual all-in- 
 all," and considered the Ignotum, with its grand 
 possibilities, rather more entitled to respect than 
 the devoloped 2 + 2 = 4, which is the sum 
 of all of our Science ; farther, that unless in 
 some distinct sense, he had held to the 
 faith of the Christian, he would scarcely — so 
 sincere a man as he was — have written as he 
 did in the " Christmas " Essay in " Dream- 
 thorp" — this is, I should say, about all that 
 any one ever knew of the religion of Alex- 
 ander Smith. As I said, he could scarcely be 
 got to talk at all on the subject. In his steady 
 avoidance of every theological topic, his ob- 
 stinate indisposition to '" Metapheesics," and 
 eschewing of every form of pertinacious and 
 wrangling dialectic, he was a positive disgrace 
 to his country. And in truth, taken all over, 
 there was a good deal in him that almost 
 might be Held to approximate to the English 
 rather than the Scotch type of understood cha- 
 racter. He was, it may be hoped, however, 
 Scotch enough to have considered that, in say-
 
 cxiv MEMOIR. 
 
 ing this, you paid him no very astonishing com- 
 pliment 
 
 With considerable distress throughout, I have 
 found myself elaborating a sketch, with a dread- 
 ful suspicion of the "Ideal" about it; of "the 
 self-less man and stainless gentleman " who 
 figures in Mr Tennyson's Poem, and is not often 
 to be met with out of it. And I have anxiously 
 considered and cast about, as wishing a good 
 strong shadow or two to dash into the picture, 
 were it only to make it something rather more like 
 a work of Art. But, almost to my grief, I found 
 they were not to be had in nature, and not even in 
 the interests of art could I think myself entitled 
 to invent them. I am not, however, in the least 
 alarmed lest my sketch should be held idealised 
 by those who personally and intimately knew 
 the simple and homely reality from which it is 
 studied. Faint and inadequate it must needs 
 be — on that side I willingly admit deficiency ; 
 but to all such I confidently appeal against 
 suspicion of having traced in it a single line of 
 exaggeration, or exercised the smallest art of 
 either suppression or extenuation. In fact, 
 there was nothing to extenuate or suppress. 
 As Art, my performance may be wretched ; but
 
 MEMOIR. cxv 
 
 it does not profess to be Art, but only simplicity 
 of Nature and truth ; and as such, except on 
 some ground of inadequacy in execution, I know 
 it quite safe from impeachment. 
 
 As regards Smith's relations with the Uni- 
 versity, remarks have been made before the 
 public from which there seemed to be inference 
 of his feeling himself uncomfortable there, as 
 not quite treated as he should be. I am bound 
 to say that for these I am aware of no just 
 foundation in anything I ever heard from him- 
 self Yet, inasmuch as there was really a ground 
 from which misconception might arise, a brief 
 word or two seems almost to be called for on 
 the subject Frankly, then, latterly the College 
 business had got to bore him somewhat more 
 than it did in his earlier time. (This pheno- 
 menon of growing boredom with strangling 
 monotonies of life is not, I should suppose, 
 peculiar to the duties of the Secretary of the 
 Edinburgh University.) The situation, always, 
 it seems to me, fairly suitable for him, as 
 giving him a basis to proceed upon, did 
 not in this sense now quite so approve itself 
 to him as it Jiad done. The duties had 
 gradually been getting heavier; and, latterly,
 
 cxvi MEMOIR. 
 
 had come to include little points of duty, 
 for discharge of which a just taste would, 
 perhaps, have ruled that the Porter at the 
 gate was, on the whole, the more proper 
 person. Farther, as I said, for the last year 
 or two of his life he was working under 
 morbid conditions, which precluded him from 
 quite enjoying, as before, the element of 
 humour in such things. In a word, he had 
 got just a little weary and sick of the 
 whole concern. I surmise so, as supplementing 
 ox producing, so to phrase it, the casually- 
 dropped remarks of a man so entirely unqueru- 
 lous, so little given to complaint as he. He 
 had some dream of a sheep-farm in Skye ; and 
 to the obvious objection that his knowledge 
 of sheep was nil, except in the form of mutton, 
 he did not seem disposed to give due weight. 
 This scheme ran much in his mind, and, had he 
 lived a year or two longer, would almost cer- 
 tainly have been carried out, with results Ar- 
 cadian or otherwise. Probably, I should say, 
 otherwise. In his taking up with this project I 
 seemed to apprehend the Poet rather than the 
 practician, and man of calm, strong sense he on 
 all other matters exhibited himself It gives us,
 
 MEMOIR. cxvii 
 
 however, pretty accurately the measure of the 
 distaste he had got to feel for the University. 
 But that, in his personal relations in that quarter, 
 there was ever anything unpleasant, not positively 
 inevitable to the position, very strong evidence 
 indeed would be needed to make me believe. 
 And of such evidence, I venture to say, none will 
 ever be produced. Of his relations with the 
 general body of the Professors, I know not very 
 much. Of a good many of them I have heard 
 him speak in terms of true liking and kindliness. 
 Of no one of them did I ever hear him speak 
 ^//kindly. His relations with Aytoun have al- 
 ready been alluded to ; and with Aytoun he had 
 much pleasant intercourse.* Even if not specially 
 alluding to the University, I could scarce have 
 
 * An instance being known to me in which Aytoun's kind 
 feeling towards Smith took a very practical and business form, 
 it may not be amiss to commemorate it. Some little time after 
 Smith's marriage, the Professor came to him one morning in his 
 room at College, and addressed him in effect somewhat thus — 
 "You're now married, Smith, and have got a household and 
 family to care for. What we give you here is, sooth to say, no 
 very fat provision. I'oetry is well ; but it don't pay for the 
 most part. Why not try a little Prose?" (This was before 
 Smith had to any extent taken into that line, or cultivated a 
 Magazine connection.) " Suppose you write something for 
 Blackwood ; try; write the stuff, and let me know when you 
 
 H 2
 
 cxviii MEMOIR. 
 
 avoided allusion to the terms of really frank, 
 easy, and cordial friaidsJiip, on which, from the 
 first and throughout, he stood with Professor 
 Blackie ; and with more of the body I should sup- 
 pose him to have been pretty intimate. If others 
 of them did not greatly heed him, this might seem 
 to be pretty much in the nature of the case ; and 
 it may be held to be equally in the nature of it, 
 that quite as little did he them — which seems all 
 that need be said on the subject. As to the other 
 subject — in regard of which unnecessary remarks 
 have also been laid before the public — as to how 
 far from Edinburgh "Society" he met with the 
 "recognition" to which he was entitled, a few 
 brief words may dispose of it. Of siicJi recog- 
 nition he had always quite as much as he cared 
 
 send it in. I'll do what I can for you in that quarter, and I don't 
 much doubt I'll be able to get it admitted. Thereafter as may 
 be. An occasional cheque coming in, of fifteen or twenty guineas, 
 under these new conditions, might not perhaps inconvenience 
 you." The paper was written accordingly, sent in, admitted, 
 . and followed by one or two more ; and though the relation with 
 Blackwood did not take a fprm of permanence, this was not 
 Aytoun's fault — nor did I ever hear of fault any^vhere — and can 
 no wav affect our estimate of his thoughtful kindness. So much 
 for the hearty relation which subsisted between Smith and his 
 literary foe of " Firmilian." The trait is to Aytoun so honour- 
 able, that it seems as well here to set it down.
 
 MEMOIR. cxix 
 
 for, or could quite conveniently manage; and sup- 
 posing he had had none at all, what then ? With 
 matters so entirely despicable, that in life the 
 man could never possibly have "filed his mind"* 
 with them, it would be foolish to defile his grave. 
 I have written to little purpose, if it has not be- 
 come plain to the reader, that of necessity the 
 man's life must have been lived some considerable 
 way above that not very elevated atmosphere 
 which is breathed by Edinburgh Society. 
 
 Smith's grave, above alluded to, is in Warris- 
 ton Cemetery, about half way between the city 
 and the sea. Over it, by the tender care of a 
 circle of his friends, has been erected a Runic 
 cross, distinguished by its singular beauty and 
 the grace of its appropriate decorations. It 
 was executed under the superintendence of his 
 friends. Sir J. Noel Paton and Mr James Drum- 
 mond, R.S. A., by the latter of whom, as a tribute 
 of affection to the Poet, the beautiful design was 
 furnished. The medallion likeness in bronze 
 is from the hand of his friend Mr William 
 
 * "For BanquSs issue have I filed my niinJ.'' — Macbeth. 
 One of the constantly recurring instances in which Shakespeare 
 writes excellent ScoUh. Filed — tlirtied, or, as we say in English, 
 ,A- filed.
 
 cxx MEMOIR. 
 
 Brodie, R.S.A., sculptor. "Alexander Smith, 
 Poet and Essayist. Erected by some of his 
 personal friends." Such is the simple inscrip- 
 tion. There is on it besides nothing of text 
 or epigraph ; and it struck me, in noting the 
 deficiency, that had such a thing been wanted, 
 a good one might readily have been found. 
 It is not to Scripture I should have gone for 
 it, but to one of the grand old Ballads which 
 he himself so loved. I almost wish the stone, 
 to those who might chance to look on it, had 
 chanted this little burden — 
 
 " A kindly Scot lies here."* 
 A kindly Scot — thus it was that in the noble 
 pathos of the old minstrel, the Douglas who 
 died at Otterbourne had last thought of himself, 
 as the brave blood and life ebbed together ; the 
 spirit, tender as heroic, exhaling itself in that 
 sweet, sad farewell sigh of brotherhood to those 
 he left. Thus it was that Alexander Smith 
 would have wished, above all, by his fellow-men 
 to be remembered. "A kindly Scot !" A Scot 
 
 O ! bury me by the bracken bush. 
 Beneath the bloomin' brier ; 
 
 Let never livin' mortal ken 
 That a kindly Scot lies here."
 
 MEMOIR. cxxi 
 
 with all the best virtue of the race in him, and as 
 little as might be of its defect— withal, of such 
 a depth of honest quiet heart and kindliness, 
 as must be rare among men of any race. Most 
 essentially the Man is given in that ; excepting 
 only his Genius, which is not, by comparison, 
 important, and would never to himself have 
 seemed so. 
 
 In concluding a sketch which has strayed 
 much beyond the limits intended, so as seriously 
 to sin against the law of proportion in the book, 
 I have simply to say some word or two of its 
 contents. The Essay on " Scottish Ballad Poetry" 
 was contributed in 1857 to a volume of "Edin- 
 burgh University Essays," and might be said to 
 be the writer's first serious attempt in Prose. As 
 it stands, he himself would certainly not have 
 reprinted it ; in fact, I have heard him pooh- 
 pooh it not a little, saying he should like to have 
 it to do over again, as confident he could make 
 a very much better thing of it. For kind permis- 
 sion to make use of it, the Publisher has to thank 
 Messrs A. & C. Black, with whom is the copy- 
 right of the volume. To Messrs T. & T. Clark his 
 thanks are also due for the paper on " Essayists 
 Old and New," which is taken with permission
 
 cxxii MEMOIR. 
 
 from the NortJi British Review. The shorter 
 papers appeared in Good J Vofds and Tlie Argosy, 
 and were thus the property of Messrs Strahan 
 and Co., \\\\o with ready kindness have allowed 
 them to be here reproduced. They have been se- 
 lected on no principle save that of simply giving 
 in series the last things of the kind produced by 
 the writer. The paper on " Sydney Dobell" is, in 
 this way, the very last thing he wrote. During 
 the summer, Dobell had again visited Edinburgh, 
 and after a separation of years, the two Poets had 
 renewed their intimacy on the old affectionate 
 terms. This must have suggested the paper. 
 Some of the pieces are slight, and that on " Lite- 
 rary Work" is not only slight, but, as I think, so 
 one-sided, if not entirely erroneous in doctrine, 
 that I had some thought of excluding it. But on 
 second thoughts I allowed it to remain, if only 
 to mark more distinctly the point of view from 
 which it is meant that the volume should be 
 regarded. While criticism is not of course 
 deprecated, in no sense is it intended as a docu- 
 ment on which to found an estimate of Smith as 
 a Prose writer. As such let him be judged by 
 the books which he himself gave to the world. 
 For the issue of the present one, a good deal of
 
 MEMOIR. cxxiii 
 
 which is obviously no more than what I have 
 
 called the spray of the writer's mind, I only am 
 
 responsible; and if in issuing it I have judged 
 
 amiss, the Virgilian in me convertite fernim, 
 
 seems naturally enough to suggest itself Smith 
 
 himself, sleeping very quietly about half-a-mile 
 
 from where I now write, will not the least be 
 
 distressed by anything ill-natured said of him ; 
 
 that sort of thing did not much pain him while 
 
 he lived, and now it cannot at all pain him'; 
 
 on which ground it will probably be obvious to 
 
 the critics, that good wit need not be wasted on 
 
 him. It is my hope that to a sufficient circle of 
 
 readers, interested in the writer, as aforetime 
 
 having drawn delight from the products of his 
 
 graceful pen, these Essays, as they now re-appear, 
 
 will need no justification. 
 
 P. P. A.
 
 iL=sp 
 
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 GREEK girl traced the shadow of her 
 lover's face on a sunny wall. That, 
 says the legend, was the birth of 
 painting. The death of one of the lions of the 
 early world may have given birth to the twin 
 arts of poetry and music. The barbarian return- 
 ing to his village laden with the spoils of the 
 chase, or driving before him a crowd of captives, 
 must have a poet to rehearse his triumphs, to 
 celebrate the strength of his arm and the terrors 
 of his unconquerable spear. To some such 
 rude source we may trace back the sacred 
 streams of poetry and music which have flowed 
 down to us out of unknown time. From his 
 power of conferring a new distinction on warlike 
 achievements, the bard or singer has ever been
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 held in respect. His songs are a kind of rude 
 fame. He is the depositary of the traditions of 
 his tribe. His memory is the archives of his 
 people, and therein are preserved their rolls of 
 glory. We find the singer in every ancient 
 nation, by the rainy shores of the Baltic, in the 
 vast Germanic forests ; and everywhere he is 
 regarded as one possessing surpassing know- 
 ledge, who has mysterious kindred with the 
 elements, and who, in solitary places, hears the 
 messages of the gods. He passes from land to 
 land, walks into the heart of hostile camps, and 
 sits down at the very carousals of his foes. He 
 finds a welcome in the den of the robber, and in 
 the rush-strewn hall of the prince. When at 
 rich and solemn feast the monarch is seated on 
 the dais surrounded by his earls, there is also the 
 minstrel with his harp. What were a banquet 
 without song and the recital of the deeds of 
 heroes } The wild boar's flesh is tasteless, the 
 mead is ditch-water; it cannot fire the blood, nor 
 tingle to the brain. In course of time chivalry 
 brought the Troubadour, a more courtly and 
 splendid personage than his predecessor, who 
 knew another god than Odin, believed in quite 
 a different Valhalla, and relished softer pleasures
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 than drinking ale out of the skulls of departed 
 warriors. Some of these men were soldiers as 
 well as minstrels, and were cunning Avith the 
 sword as with the harp-string. On the morning 
 of Hastings, Taillefer asked and obtained per- 
 mission from William to lead the onset. He 
 sang in a loud voice the " Song of Roland " in 
 the front of the Norman army ; then, striking 
 spurs into his horse, he rode forward still sing- 
 ing, and dashed his life out in an ecstasy on the 
 Saxon spears. After the Conquest, the English 
 kings were great patrons of poets and minstrels, 
 and some of them were no mean brethren of 
 the craft, and could touch the harp themselves. 
 Richard I. was an accomplished musician, and 
 composed verses. The story how one of the 
 king's minstrels, Blondell by name, rescued his 
 master from captivity, is familiar to most readers. 
 It was known in England that Richard had 
 returned from Palestine, but no one could tell in 
 what country he was detained. Blondell tra- 
 velled through many lands in search of the king, 
 till his wanderings led him one day to a strong 
 castle. On inquiry he learned that the fortress 
 belonged to the Duke of Austria, and that it 
 contained a single prisoner ; but no one could
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 tell him his name. The minstrel took up his 
 place beneath one of the grated windows, and 
 began to sing a song in French, which he and 
 the king had at one time composed together. 
 Richard started when the familiar tones fell 
 upon his ear, and recognised Blondell's voice. 
 He immediately took up the strain, and sang 
 the remaining half. By that token Blondell 
 knew it was the king, and, returning to England, 
 discovered to the barons where their master was 
 imprisoned. In the reign of Richard II. a court 
 of minstrels was established, which obtained a 
 charter, had power to enact laws, and every year 
 elected a king to preside over them. By the 
 time of Elizabeth the craft had fallen into dis- 
 repute, the minstrel was profanely classed with 
 " rogues, vagabonds, and sturdy beggars," and 
 seems to have been better acquainted with the 
 stafif of the constable than with the tables of the 
 rich or the favour of princes. Although more 
 emphatically the home of minstrelsy than Eng- 
 land, we have but little information relative to 
 the worldly prosperity of the minstrels in Scot- 
 land. Celtic bards, we know, frequently left 
 their mountains and wandered through the Low- 
 lands singing their wild songs, and the inhabi-
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 5 
 
 tants of the Borders were passionately fond of 
 listening to strains in which the struggles of 
 clans and the forays into England were cele- 
 brated. Some provision appears to have been 
 made for poets or musicians among the Celtic 
 tribes ; a piper seems to have been as indis- 
 pensable to a Highland chieftain as a claymore 
 or eagle's feather ; and a portion of the land of 
 the tribe, called the " piper's croft," was set 
 apart for the support of that important indivi- 
 dual. In the Lowlands the poets seem to have 
 found few royal favours. Dunbar and Sir David 
 Lindsay resided at court, and although the first 
 was sometimes attached to the train of a noble 
 when he visited France on an embassy of state, 
 and the second was honoured by bearing a 
 young prince on his back, he meanwhile romping 
 about on all-fours, they do not seem to have 
 lived in the most flourishing condition. A con- 
 siderable portion of their poetry is of the beg- 
 ging-letter species. If wit and eloquence had 
 had power to charm coin from the pocket of the 
 king, theirs had been better supplied. It is to 
 be hoped that the poets were the most trouble- 
 some duns of the Jameses, else the unfortunate 
 monarchs must have frequently been at the end
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 of their royal wits. It is hardly to be expected, 
 however, that a line of kings, of lineage unex- 
 ceptionable and most irreproachable blood, some 
 of whom were occasionally hard-pushed in the 
 matter of silk stockings, could afford to be 
 generous to singing men and singing women — 
 to poets, jesters, and buffoons. 
 
 But it was not from the court poets that the 
 Ballads sprung. They grew up over the country 
 like wildflowcrs. Their authors were most pro- 
 bably part minstrels, part gaberlunzies, who 
 wandered about the kingdom, dwelling often 
 "under the canopy with the choughs and crows," 
 haunting fairs, markets, and all assemblies of 
 people, and when fortunate enough to procure a 
 supper and a couch of straw, paying their law- 
 ing with a song, and then forward on the morrow ; 
 and often, doubtless, we should find the minstrel 
 equipped iu the steel jacket of the moss-trooper, 
 urging a drove of floundering and terrified cattle 
 before him from Cumberland on a moonless 
 night, with many a prick of lance and a great 
 superfluity of curses. Many of the Border Ballads 
 are so real and life-like, so full of character and 
 humour, that we feel as if the singer had himself 
 wielded a sword in the combat, or ridden into
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 England to lift a prey. The form of this kind 
 of poetry is of course necessitated by the cir- 
 cumstances of the minstrel and his audience. 
 It was meant to be sung on public occasions 
 to the harp or some other musical instrument, 
 and in order to produce effect and sustain in- 
 terest, the theme must be some exploit which 
 flashed out far above common raid and the 
 skirmish of rival clans — some surpassing tragedy 
 which steeped a whole country-side in tears. 
 The story claimed, too, to be told in the most 
 direct and natural manner, and the lighter poetic 
 graces — ornaments and efflorescences, precious 
 and delightful enough in a calmer hour — were 
 scared away by the fury of the minstrel's hand 
 and voice. These compositions — and some of 
 them are very ancient — were not, till a com- 
 paratively recent period, preserved by printing ; 
 living, therefore, on the lips and in the memories 
 of several generations, and sung extensively over 
 a country where, even at the present day, every 
 twenty or thirty miles you come upon a dialect 
 locally peculiar, it is not surprising that in pro- 
 cess of time they underwent considerable modi- 
 fications ; that we frequently find half-a-dozen 
 versions of the same story, and several stanzas
 
 8 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 of one ballad imbedded in tlie very heart of 
 another. When a minstrel met a brother of the 
 craft, they would in all probability exhibit their 
 stock-in-trade, and both thereby acquire fresh 
 materials. The meeting over, and reciting his 
 novelties in distant parts of the country, if 
 memory failed, the singer who could not afford 
 to pause in his strain would hardly hesitate to 
 thrust into the hiatus any set of stanzas which, 
 without outrage to the proprieties of the story, 
 carried along with it the feelings of his audience. 
 In these compositions there are great similarities 
 of incident and feeling. One thing at least never 
 fails the reader : when two lovers die they are of 
 course buried together; and out of the grave of 
 one there springs a rose, and out of the grave of 
 the other a briar, which, rapidly growing, con- 
 trive, as a sort of poetical justice and compensa- 
 tion for their cruel fate, to interlace and marry 
 their branches above the spire of the church — 
 a spectacle which, however it might astonish 
 people now-a-days, seems to have had the most 
 touching associations for the grim moss-trooper 
 and the lawless reiver of the marches. None of 
 these Ballads can be looked upon as the work of 
 a single author. Their present form is the work
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 of generations. For centuries the floating 
 legendary material was reshaped, added to, and 
 altered, by the changing spirit and emotion of 
 man. Rude and formless, they are touching and 
 venerable as some ruin on the waste, the names 
 of whose builders are unknown ; whose towers 
 and walls, although not erected in accordance 
 with the lights of modern architecture, affect 
 the spirit and fire the imagination far more than 
 nobler and more recent piles ; for its chambers, 
 now roofless to the day, were ages ago tenanted 
 by life and death, joy and sorrow ; for its walls 
 have been worn and rounded by time, its stones 
 channelled and fretted by the fierce tears of 
 winter rains ; on broken arch and battlement 
 every April for centuries has kindled a light of 
 desert flowers, and it stands muffled in ivy, 
 bearded with moss, and stained with lichens, 
 crimson, golden, and green by the suns of for- 
 gotten summers. We are told to imitate this ; 
 but who can recall the strong arms and rude 
 hearts that piled huge stone on stone } Who 
 can simulate the hallowing of time .'' Who can 
 create us a ruin to-day with the weather-wear 
 and lichens of five centuries upon it ? 
 
 The Scottish Ballads may be divided into two
 
 lo SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 classes: i. Those poems founded on historical 
 events, private tragedies, and the fairy myth- 
 ology. 2. Those which more specially pertain 
 to the Borders, and relate the sturt and strife, 
 the wild revenges, the exploits, skirmishes, and 
 cattle-lifting expeditions of the marchmen. The 
 first contains much of the finest poetry and the 
 deepest pathos. Those of the second attend 
 closely to the business in hand, are rude and bust- 
 ling, and are frequently enlivened by flashes of 
 savage humour. In every stanza you seem to hear 
 the clatter of hoofs and the rattle of steel jackets. 
 Both are valuable, as throwing light on a condition 
 of man which can never recur in these islands ; 
 as exhibiting in a mighty mirror pictures of a 
 strong, passionate, turbulent time. Nowhere is 
 the reader more impressed, not even on the page 
 of Shakespeare himself, with the reality of the 
 scenes and the men and women. Yet with all 
 this naturalness, it is difficult for the reader of 
 to-day, with his complex environments and 
 difference of training, to imagine himself so 
 actuated, so subdued by fears, so stormed along 
 by passion. In reading these compositions, we 
 see what we have gained and lost in the course 
 of a few centuries, what new elements have
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. ii 
 
 entered into human life, what more of awfuhiess 
 or frivoHty, of truth or falsehood ; we discover 
 the old sea-margins of right and wrong, and 
 compare with them the point the tide reaches 
 to-day. All that far-off, lawless, and generous 
 life is unroofed to us in these Ballads ; we 
 wander amongst the relics of a past society as 
 we would amongst the ruins of Pompeii. We 
 see the domestic economy of the houses of our 
 ancestors ; everything is left there for our in- 
 spection. We cart take up a household imple- 
 ment and examine its material and shape. The 
 first thing which strikes the reader of the Ballads 
 is their direct and impulsive life. There is no- 
 thing cloaked or concealed. You look through 
 the iron corslet of the marauder, and see the 
 fierce heart heave beneath. None of the heroes 
 ever seems to feel that hesitancy and palsy of 
 action which arises from the clash of complex 
 and opposing motives. At once the mailed hand 
 executes the impulse of the hot heart. There 
 seem to have been no dissimulators in those 
 days. If a man is a scoundrel, he speaks and 
 acts as if he were perfectly aware of the fact, 
 and aware, too, that the whole world knew it as 
 well as himself. If a man is wronged by an-
 
 12 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 other, ho runs him through the body with his 
 sword, or cleaves him to the chin with his pole- 
 axe, and then flees, pursued day and night, 
 awake and asleep, in town and wilderness, by a 
 bloody ghost. If two lovers meet in the green- 
 wood, they forget church and holy priest, and in 
 course of time the heron is startled from his 
 solitary haunt, and shame and despair are at 
 rest beneath the long weeds of the pool, and a 
 ghost with dripping hair glides into the chamber, 
 and with hand of ice awakes the horrified be- 
 trayer from his first sleep on his bridal night. 
 And these men had their rude reverences and 
 devotions, terrors of the solitary mountain-top 
 and the moonless waste, wandering fires of the 
 morass, spirits of the swollen stream : Edom o' 
 Gordon, who burned a mother and her children 
 in their own tower, with laughter and mockery, 
 as if agony were a jest, would ere night mutter 
 an Ave to Mary Mother, and cross himself as 
 devoutly as ever a saint in the calendar ; and 
 the moss-trooper who could impale an infant on 
 his spear-point, would shiver at an omen which 
 a schoolboy laughs at. These people were not 
 afflicted with the maladies of hair-splitting and 
 nice distinctions. A character like Hamlet's,
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 13 
 
 where doubt balances resolve, and thought 
 action, was impossible in those straight-forward 
 days ; perhaps quite as well for Hamlet. Before 
 he could have made up his mind how to act 
 under the circumstances, the sweep of a sword- 
 blade would have solved that and every other 
 problem for him for ever. Public opinion had 
 not come into their world to make men walk- 
 gingerly as if upon knives, to add hypocrisy to 
 vice, to rub the fine bloom off goodness, and to 
 make a faiix pas worse than a crime. The wild 
 eyes of passion, on whatever message she is 
 bent, whether to kill or save, are seldom turned 
 in the direction of the Decalogue. The full 
 heart is its own law, its fluctuations its only 
 creed ; and, describing these men and women, 
 singing their tragedies, the ballad-monger fre- 
 quently, in utter innocence and unconsciousness, 
 and in words simple as the babble of childhood, 
 goes to the inmost core of the matter like the 
 inevitable arrow of a William Tell, and the tears 
 are on our cheeks before we are aware. This 
 is an art which the world has lost, and which 
 cannot be recovered until centuries are can- 
 celled, and knights are again pricking through 
 the greenwood, ladies sitting among the roses
 
 14 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 of their bower-windows, and minstrels wander- 
 ing through the country harp in hand. Society- 
 is migratory, settHng age after age in different 
 districts, with changing abodes and occupations ; 
 and wherever she dwells, whether in the hut of 
 the trapper, or in the glittering capitals of 
 civilisation, Poetry must attend, and take de- 
 light in representing the life which lies around 
 the loghouse or the palace. 
 
 The literary merit of many of these Ballads is 
 great ; in the majority, the singer is in utter 
 abeyance, and the subject is all in all. There 
 is no straining or effort ; no artifices are em- 
 ployed to fillip the dull spirit of the reader ; no 
 impertinent ornaments distract the attention 
 from the agony or the woe. Their authors were 
 not literary men, and there was no existing 
 literature by which their efforts were measured. 
 Originality was not expected of them, and they 
 were consequently never tempted to call grass 
 purple, to avoid the imputation of plagiarism, 
 some former writer having called it green. There 
 were no critics to show up their failings and 
 shortcomings, or to parade their good things — 
 perhaps a line and a half in length — in italics, 
 as the manner of some is. It may fairly be
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 15 
 
 doubted whether the present time is favourable 
 to the production of poetry of a high class ; not, 
 as is commonly supposed, that there is anything 
 necessarily unpoetical in the artificial state of 
 society, in the eternal struggle and roar of 
 labour, in the shifting of the points of interest 
 from green fields and meadows, and the sweet 
 goings on of pastoral life, to the joys, crimes, 
 and tragedies of men congregated in thousands 
 beneath the smoke of mighty towns ; but mainly 
 from the greatness of existing literature, the pre- 
 valence of criticism, and its immediate applica- 
 tion to literary productions. In 1824 we find 
 Goethe expressing himself in the following terms 
 to Eckermann : — " And how could one get cou- 
 rage only to put pen to paper, if one were con- 
 scious, in an earnest appreciating spirit, that such 
 unfathomable and unattainable excellences (as 
 Shakespeare's waitings) were already in exis- 
 tence ! ... It fared better with me fifty 
 years ago in my own dear Germany. I could 
 soon come to an end with all that then existed ; 
 it could not long awe me, or occupy my atten- 
 tion. I soon left behind me German literature 
 and the study of it, and turned my thoughts to 
 life and to production. So on and on I went in
 
 i6 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 my own natural development, and on and on I 
 fashioned the productions of epoch after epoch. 
 And at every step of life and development ni}- 
 standard of excellence was not much higher 
 than what at such step I was able to attain. 
 But had I been born an Englishman, and had 
 all those numerous masterpieces been brought 
 before me in all their power, at my first dawn of 
 youthful consciousness, they would have over- 
 powered me, and I should not have known 
 what to do. I could not have gone on with 
 such fresh light-heartedness, but should have 
 had to bethink myself, and look about for a 
 long time to find some new outlet." It is this 
 seeking a "new outlet for oneself" which is 
 the cause of nearly all the vices of contem- 
 porary literature — of poetry especially. On it 
 may be charged the strain and glitter, the 
 forced and perverse originality, and the extra- 
 ordinary innovations, in rythm and measure, of 
 which so much is heard both in the way of ap- 
 plause and condemnation. The primal emotions 
 of humanity have been so fully sung in England 
 during the last two hundred years, that a poet 
 of the present period, unless he is swept away 
 b}- the torrent of feeling, or is bold enough —
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 17 
 
 which he is perfectly justified in being — to look 
 upon every situation of life, whether expressed 
 before or not, as merely poetic material, and to 
 use it for his own purposes, colour it by his own 
 mind, shape it by his own emotion, — is tempted, 
 when he remembers in a former writer some 
 consummate expression of an idea, indispens- 
 able to the sequence and stream of emotion, 
 to diverge from the direct path, and attest his 
 originality by becoming unintelligible or un- 
 natural. It is required of every builder that he 
 should erect a house new and well-proportioned ; 
 it is not required that he should, with his own 
 hands, have baked every brick employed in the 
 edifice. The existing system of criticism, and 
 the greatness and fulness of literature, are in 
 many respects injurious to poetical writers. An 
 author's first book is generally written con amore 
 and for himself; critic and reader are forgot- 
 ten in the heat and delight of the task ; but 
 after he has run the gantlet of dailies, weeklies, 
 monthlies, and quarterlies, he becomes more 
 conscious and less single-hearted. He writes 
 with one eye to his subject, and the other to 
 what the reviewers will say of him. He is more 
 
 careful of the expression than of the thought. 
 
 B
 
 iS SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 He desires to dazzle and astonish. He is no 
 longer an inspired singer uttering words of fire ; 
 he is a lapidary coldly polishing a gem. The 
 condition of the modern author resembles that 
 of the flying-fish : if it seeks the air to escape 
 its water foes, pounce come the gulls upon it. 
 If he writes quietly, he is commonplace ; if 
 strikingly, he is a- sky-rocket with a noisy rush 
 to heaven, a brilliant burst and shower of falling 
 splendours, and then utter darkness and oblivion. 
 He must either be crazy or dull. Under which 
 king, Bezonian .'' speak or die ! Most men pre- 
 fer the former. The ballad-writers, living under 
 different circumstances, were of course untouched 
 by these peculiar temptations, nor had they to 
 face the spectres and questions which centuries 
 of life and speculation have since started. They 
 had simpler hearts and lived in simpler times. 
 They sang to rude and uncultured men ; their 
 task was to touch their spirits and evoke their 
 sympathies; and from their peculiar environment 
 and training, they exhibit an artlessness and 
 simplicity which become at times the very 
 perfection of style, and which — whatever other 
 merits modern singers may possess — cannot be 
 expected to appear in anything like the same
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 19 
 
 degree in an artificial and fastidious age. In 
 pathos they are supreme. Nothing can be placed 
 beside them. The feeling is so direct and simple, 
 and goes so to the heart. There is an element 
 of helplessness in it which is overpowering. It 
 is piteous as the complaint of a little child. 
 
 Sir Philip Sidney said long ago that the ballad 
 of Chevy-Chase, although "sung but by some 
 blinde crowder," stirred his blood " more than a 
 trumpet." The publication of Bishop Percy's 
 " Reliques," at the close of the last century, was 
 the salvation of English poetry. The world 
 Avas weary of the museums of Darwin and 
 Hayley, with their wax figures arrayed in 
 dresses stiff with embroidery and gold ; — pretty 
 enough to look on as curiosities in their gorgeous 
 apparel, but with never a flash in their glassy 
 eyes, never a throb beneath their costly clothes. 
 In the " Reliques " had returned tenderness, 
 and nature, and passion. The voices of men and 
 women were again heard in gladness and grief, 
 the globed dews were lying thick on the purple 
 moors, the wind was blowing strong and fresh, 
 curling the faces of the streams, and bringing 
 odours from the forests. The rivers of poetry 
 had been frozen up, but the spring had come
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 and loosened their icy chains, and they flowed 
 forth again exulting and abounding. 
 
 Coleridge has praised the " grand old ballad 
 of Sir Patrick Spens." Being familiar to most 
 readers, it need not now be quoted at length. 
 Passing, however, such graphic touches of de- 
 scription as — 
 
 I saw the new moon late yestreen, 
 Wi' the auld moon in her arm : 
 
 or- 
 
 He hadna sailed a league, a league, 
 
 A league, but barely tliree ; 
 When the lift grew dark, and the wind blew loud, 
 
 And gurly grew the sea, 
 
 attention may be drawn to its magnificent close — 
 
 O lang, lang may the ladyes sit 
 
 Wi' their fans into their hand ; 
 Before they see Sir Patrick Spens, 
 
 Come sailing to the strand. 
 
 And lang, lang may the maidens sit 
 Wi' their gowd kames in their hair ; 
 
 A' waiting for their ain dear loves, 
 For them they'll see nae mair. 
 
 O forty miles off Aberdour, 
 
 'Tis fifty fathom deep ; 
 And there lies gude Sir Patrick Spens, 
 
 Wi' the Scots lords at his feet.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 21 
 
 Whoever he was, the nameless and forgotten 
 author of this old song was a poet, and a great 
 one too. 
 
 The ballad of Fair Helen is well known, and 
 the story is simple. Helen, a lady of great 
 beauty, had two lovers, one of whom was pre- 
 ferred ; but their passion being displeasing to 
 her family, they were obliged to meet in secret. 
 During one of these interviews the discarded 
 suitor appeared on the opposite bank of the 
 stream, and in a fit of jealous rage, levelled his 
 carabine at his rival. Helen sprang before her 
 lover to shield him, and received the bullet. 
 The following song is supposed to be sung by 
 the bereaved man over her grave : — 
 
 I wish I were where Helen lies, 
 Night and day on me she cries ; 
 O that I were where Helen lies, 
 On fair Kirkconnell Lee ! 
 
 Curst be the heart that thought the thought, 
 And curst the hand that fired the shot, 
 When in my arms burd Helen dropt, 
 And died to succour me ! 
 
 O think na ye my heart was sair 
 When my love dropt doon and spak nae mair ! 
 Then did she swoon wi' meikle care 
 On fair Kirkconnell Lee.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 As I went doun the water side, 
 None but my foe to be my guide, 
 None but my foe to be my guide, 
 On fair Kirkconnell Lee : 
 
 I lighted doun my sword to draw, 
 I hackit him in pieces sma", 
 I hackit him in pieces sma', 
 For her sake that died for me. 
 
 I wish my grave were growing green, 
 A winding-sheet drawn ower my een. 
 And I in Helen's arms lying 
 On fair Kirkconnell Lee. 
 
 The reader will note the curiously intermingled 
 ferocity and pathos of these verses ; the lament 
 with which they open ; the grim satisfaction 
 with which he recounts his progress down the 
 river, his foe being his "guide," repeated as if 
 t/iat gave an additional zest and flavour to his 
 revenge ; the terrible reduplication, — 
 
 I hackit him in pieces sma', 
 I hackit him in pieces sma' — 
 
 in which he lingers over, and is loath to leave 
 the savage sweetness of the memory, killing the 
 wretch again and again in imagination. That 
 done, he is weak as tears. How desolate and 
 hopeless is the music, —
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 23 
 
 I wish my grave were growing green, 
 A winding-sheet drawn ower my een. 
 
 His vengeance is sated The fiery thirst which 
 kept him alive, and all too eager for sleep, is 
 abundantly slaked. There is nothing now to 
 live for on earth. Blind him, therefore, with a 
 winding-sheet, shut out the world from him with 
 its peaceful folds, and lay him side by side with 
 Helen in the grave. 
 
 A dreadful scene is described in the ballad 
 entitled " Edom o' Gordon." This marauder 
 clatters up to the house of Rodes with a band of 
 ruffians at his heels, and in the absence of the 
 lord demands that the lady should deliver up to 
 him the keys of the castle. She refuses, and 
 the freebooter orders the house to be burned. 
 The poor mother is standing at one of the win- 
 dows with her children, girt with climbing and 
 quivering fires, and rolled in volumes of choking 
 smoke, and reproaches one of her servants whom 
 she discovers busy among the yelling fiends 
 outside. 
 
 *' Wae worth, wae worth ye, Jock, my man, 
 
 I paid ye weel your fee ; 
 Why pu' ye out the ground-wa stane 
 
 Lets in the reek to me ?
 
 !4 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 " And ein wae worth ye, Jock, my man, 
 
 I paid ye weel your hire ; 
 Why pu' ye out the ground-wa stane 
 
 To me lets in the fire ?" 
 
 " Ye paid me weel my hire, lady, 
 
 Ye paid me weel my fee, 
 But now I'm Edom o' Gordon's man. 
 
 Maun either do or dee." 
 
 O then bespaik her little son, 
 
 Sate on the nurse's knee : 
 Says, " Mither dear, gi' ower this house 
 
 For the reek it smithers me." 
 
 "I wad gie a' my gowd, my child, 
 
 Sae wad I a' my fee, 
 For ane blast o' the western wind 
 
 To blavv the reek from thee." 
 
 O then bespaik lier dochter dear. 
 She was baith jimp and sma', 
 
 " O, row me in a pair o' sheets, 
 And tow me ower the wa'." 
 
 They row'd her in a pair o' sheets. 
 They tow'd her ower the wa' ; 
 
 But on the point o' Gordon's spear 
 She got a deadly fa'. 
 
 O bonnie bonnie was her mouth, 
 And cherrj' were her cheeks ; 
 
 And clear clear was her yellow hair. 
 From which the red bluid dreeps. 
 
 Then wi' his spear he turned her ower, 
 
 gin her face was wan ! 
 
 He said, " Ye are the first that eir 
 
 1 wished alive again."
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 25 
 
 He turned her ower and ower again, 
 
 O gin her skin was white ! 
 ' ' I might hae spared that bonnie face 
 
 To hae been some man's dehght. 
 
 " Busk and l)oun, my merry men a', 
 
 For ill dooms I do guess ; 
 I canna luik on that bonnie face 
 
 As it lies on the grass." 
 
 The writer of " Edom o' Gordon " had no 
 theories of art. He uttered only what he saw 
 and felt ; but what words could add to that 
 picture of the burning tower, the unutterable 
 sigh of the mother for " ane blast o' the western 
 wind," and the mute reproach of the face on the 
 grass, more terrible to the marauder than the 
 gleam of hostile spears .'' 
 
 There is an expression of misery in these 
 Ballads which appears frequently in Scottish 
 song, and is in some degree peculiar to the com- 
 positions of the nation. It is a ghost which 
 rises out of the ashes of passion ; the despair — 
 caused by stroke of death or heartlessness of 
 man — of that love which knew neither pride of 
 birth, nor riches, nor shame, nor death ; which 
 was conscious only of itself, blind to everything 
 save its own rapture and its own joy ; a mental 
 state, not grief, not pain, but rather a dull stupor
 
 26 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 of miser}', which would welcome sharp pain 
 itself as a relief from its own bewilderment, 
 which turns passionately to death, and hugs 
 oblivion like a lover. The heart has crowded 
 all on one throw of the dice : that lost, the for- 
 getfulness of the grave, and a quiet coverlet of 
 waving grass, are all that even Hope desires. 
 
 In 1529 James V. made an expedition to the 
 Borders, and executed many of the freebooters. 
 One of those who suffered was Cockburn of 
 Henderland. He was hanged by command of 
 the king over the gateway of Iiis own tower. 
 The following verses seem to have been com- 
 posed by his wife : — 
 
 lie slew my knight to me sae dear, 
 He slew my knight and poin'd his gear : 
 My servants all for life did flee, 
 And left me in cxtremitie. 
 
 I sewed his sheet, making my mane : 
 I watched the corpse myself alane ; 
 I watched his body night and day, 
 No living creature came that way. 
 
 I took his body on my back, 
 
 And whiles I gaed and whiles I sat ; 
 
 I digg'd a grave and laid him in, 
 
 And happed* him with the sod so green. 
 
 * Can the English reader catch the strange tenderness and 
 pathos of the word happed? It is one of the dearest to a
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 27 
 
 But think na ye my heart was sair, 
 When I laid the moul' on his yellow hair ; 
 O think na ye my heart was wae, 
 When I turned about away to gae. 
 
 Does the reader remember anything half so 
 touching as that woman's lonely vigil by the 
 dead, in a solitude where no creature came, or 
 her progress to some secret place, carrying the 
 body of her lord, sitting down weary with the 
 burden, and then up and struggling on again ? 
 There is in the verses no tumult, no complaint, 
 no wild wringing of sorrowful hands, no frenzied 
 appeal to the pitiless Heaven that saw the deed 
 and made no sign. A broken heart indulges 
 in neither trope nor metaphor ; the language is 
 simple as a child's, the circumstances are related 
 without any passion or excitement. All lesser 
 feelings are lost and swallowed up in utter 
 desolation and woe. 
 
 Scottish ear, recalling infancy and the thousand instances of the 
 love of a mother's heart, and the unwearied care of a mother's 
 hand. The red-breast /tapped the dead bodies of the Babes in 
 the Wood with leaves. Happed is the nurseiy word in Scot- 
 land, expressing the care with which the bed-clothes are laid 
 upon the little forms, and carefully tucked in about the round 
 sleeping cheeks. What an expression it gives in the verses 
 quoted above to the burden and agony of fondness, all wasted 
 and lavished on unheeding clay !
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 There is an old song, published by Dr Percy 
 in his " Reliques," which illustrates the hope- 
 less pathos to which allusion has been made. 
 The circumstances of the tragedy are unknown. 
 All that has come down to us is the following 
 strain of mournful music : — 
 
 waly waly up the bank, 
 
 And waly waly down the brae, 
 And waly waly yon bum side, 
 
 Where I and my love were wont to gae. 
 
 1 lent my back unto an aik, 
 
 I thought it was a trusty tree, 
 But first it bowed and syne it brak, 
 Sae my tnae love did lichtly me. 
 
 O waly waly gin love be bonny 
 
 A little time while it is new ; 
 But when it's auld it waxeth cauld, 
 
 And fades away like morning dew. 
 O wherefore should I busk my head ? 
 
 Or wherefore should I kame my hair? 
 For my true love has me forsook. 
 
 And says he '11 never loe me mair. 
 
 Now Arthur Seat shall be my bed, 
 
 The sheets shall ne'er be fyled by me ; 
 Saint Anton's well shall be my drink. 
 
 Since my true love has forsaken me. 
 Marti'mas wind, when wilt thou blaw. 
 
 And shake the green leaves afT the tree ? 
 O gentle death, when wilt thou cum ? 
 
 For of my life I am wearie.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 29 
 
 'Tis not the frost that freezes fell, 
 
 Nor blawing snavv's inclemencie : 
 'Tis not sic cauld tiiat makes my cry, 
 
 But my love's heart grown cauld to me. 
 Whan we came in by Glasgowe town, 
 
 We were a comely sight to see ; 
 My love vi^as cled in black velvet, 
 
 And I mysell in cramasie. 
 
 But had I wist before I kist, 
 
 That love had been sae ill to win, 
 I had lockt my heart in a case o' gowd, 
 
 And pinned it with a siller pin. 
 And oh ! if my young babe were born, 
 
 And set upon the nurse's knee, 
 And I mysell were dead and gane, 
 
 For a maid again I'se never be. 
 
 Burns, in one of his letters, quotes the follow- 
 ing stanzas from an old ballad he had picked 
 up among the country people. It breathes 
 the same hopeless misery as those already 
 quoted, and pines like them for the rest of the 
 grave : — 
 
 O that my father had ne'er on me smiled ! 
 
 O that my mother had ne'er to me sung ! 
 O that my cradle had never been rocked, 
 
 But that I had died when I was young ! 
 
 O that the grave it were my bed ! 
 My blankets were my w'inding-sheet !
 
 30 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 The clocks and the worms my bed-fellows a', 
 And, O, sae sound as I should sleep ! 
 
 "What a sigh was there!" Bums adds; "I do 
 not remember, in all my reading, to have met 
 with anything more truly the language of 
 misery than the exclamation in the last line. 
 Misery is like love ; to speak its language truly 
 the author must have felt it." 
 
 The Ballads relating to sprites, fairies, and 
 other supernatural creatures, are not many in 
 number, but are mostly of great poetic beauty. 
 From these compositions we gain considerable 
 information regarding the spiritual agents in 
 which the mounted robber of the marches be- 
 lieved, and at the mention of whose name, or 
 on approach to the district in which they were 
 supposed to reside, he piously crossed himself, 
 and murmured a prayer to Mary Mother. Per- 
 haps, owing to the desolate aspect of the scenery 
 and the sterner character of the people, the 
 superstitions of Scotland are of a more terrific 
 nature than those of the sister kingdom. The 
 Scotch have no Puck or Robin Goodfellow. 
 The taciturn Brownie who sets the house to 
 right.s, who threshes as much corn in a single 
 night as six husbandmen could accomplish in a
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 31 
 
 summer day, and forsakes the family when he is 
 insulted by any offer of gift or reward, is the most 
 kindly disposed to human beings. The greater 
 proportion, however, of the creatures of popular 
 superstition are of an uncanny and vindictive dis- 
 position. There is the restless Will-o'-thc-Wisp, 
 who betrays the traveller into the treacher- 
 ous bog and deep morass ; the Water-Kelpie, 
 who haunts at midnight the fords of swollen 
 streams, and raises shrieks of eldritch laughter, 
 when horse and man are swept away by the 
 current ; and there are the Fairies, whose mossy 
 rings are still to be seen on the hill-side ; and 
 when the peasant is overtaken on the lonely 
 moor by these phantom riders in chase of a 
 phantom stag, although he sees nothing, a sound 
 of horns and dogs sweeps past him on the wind ; 
 and on Hallowmas Eve, when they ride forth 
 in courtly and measured procession, dim shapes 
 are visible in the moonbeam, and he hears the 
 trampling of innumerable tiny hoofs and the 
 music of their bridle bells. The Fairies are a 
 kidnapping people, and have acquired great 
 dexterity in their art. They carry off young 
 children, and leave a peevish and misshapen elf 
 in its place ; and persons of maturer age, if they
 
 32 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 happen to sleep within the rings after sunset, 
 arc pretty certain to awake in Fairyland. Many 
 a child who wandered out to gather berries in 
 the wood, and who was sought in the evening 
 with tears and a broken heart, and so the next 
 day and the next, is now a happy page to the 
 Fairy Queen. Many a man who never returned 
 from his distant journey, and for wdiose soul 
 mass has been sung and prayers offered, and 
 whose wife, who thought she never could have 
 forgotten him, sleeps in the bosom of another 
 husband, is at this moment stretched in one of 
 the sweet-smelling valleys, and basking in the 
 everlasting sunshine of that Land of Dream, 
 wondering, perhaps, what his old companions 
 are about on the earth, and if they ever think 
 of him now. Seek not to return, O lost one ! 
 However unpleasant to believe, the world wags 
 just as comfortably as when you were one of its 
 denizens. The chair you sat upon is filled. 
 The heart that loved you once has changed its 
 allegiance, and loves another quite as fondly and 
 devotedly. The guests have sat down ; every 
 seat is occupied ; there is no room for you at 
 the feast. When one of these lost ones wishes 
 to return to earth, he informs some friend, by
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 33 
 
 dream that he has been carried away by the 
 " good people," and points out the method in 
 which his release can be accomplished. The 
 friend thus commissioned takes his station on 
 Hallowmas Eve on tiic highway along which 
 the Fairies are to pass. Soon the cavalcade is 
 heard approaching. He stands forward and 
 seizes a rider by the mantle, and claims him* 
 by name. After some altercation and fierce 
 struggles, the procession sweeps on with mur- 
 murs of discontent ; a hurried trample of in- 
 numerable hoofs and clash of angry bells, and 
 two human beings are standing on the midnight 
 road. In the ballad of " Young Tamlane," we 
 are told how a lady rescued her lover in this 
 manner from the Fairies, and we are also ad- 
 mitted behind the scenes, and learn zvJiy the 
 " good people " have a penchant for the children 
 of human parents. Elf-land, it seems, like every 
 other land, has its secret history and its own 
 annoyances. It appears, then, that the land of 
 Fairy must pay tribute to Hell once every seven 
 years, that tribute being its fattest inhabitant. 
 The Fairies naturally prefer handing over to the 
 tender mercies of the Fiend one of the human 
 mortals whom they have ensnared, rather than
 
 34 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 one of their own race. Young Tamlanc is un- 
 happily inclined to obesity ; in fact, he is the 
 Jack Falstaff of Fairyland ; and as the seven 
 years are well-nigh expired, and the time draws 
 near when llcll must receive its due, his sleek 
 and well-to-do condition throws him into a 
 state of considerable trepidation. He therefore 
 appears to his lady-love, and tells her that he 
 enjoys exceedingly the pleasures of Elf-land ; 
 indeed, he would not think of changing his 
 residence but for the weighty considerations 
 already mentioned, which he describes with con- 
 siderable uaiveM and pathos : — 
 
 Then I would never tire, Janet, 
 
 In Elfish land to dwell, 
 But aye, at every seven years. 
 They pay the teind to hell ; 
 And I am sae fat and fair of flesh, 
 
 I fear 'twill be mysel'. 
 
 He adds that that evening is Halloween, the 
 evening when the Fairies would ride abroad, 
 and that if she would save him, she must act 
 to-night or never. She asks how she should 
 recognise him among the passing troops of 
 ghostly knights and unearthly cavaliers. He 
 replies : —
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 35 
 
 The first company that passes by, 
 
 Say na, and let them gae ; 
 The next company that passes by, 
 
 Sae na, and do right sae ; 
 The third company that passes by. 
 
 Then I'll be ane o' thae. 
 
 First let pass the black, Janet, 
 
 And syne let pass the brown ; 
 But grip ye to the milk-white steed, 
 
 And pu' the rider doun. 
 
 For I ride on the milk-white steed, 
 
 And aye nearest the toun ; 
 Because I was a christened knight, 
 
 They gave me that renown. 
 
 My right hand will be gloved, Janet, 
 
 My left hand will be bare ; 
 And these the tokens I gie thee, 
 
 Nae -doubt I will be there. 
 
 They'll turn me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 An adder and a snake ; 
 But haud me fast, let me not pass. 
 
 Gin ye wad buy me maik. 
 
 They'll turn me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 An adder and an ask ; 
 They'll turn me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 A bale that bums fast. 
 
 They'll turn me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 A red-hot gad o' airn ; 
 But haud me fast, let me not pass, 
 
 For I'll do you no harm.
 
 36 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 They'll shape me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 A tod, but, and an eel ; 
 But baud me fast, nor let me gang. 
 
 As you do love me weel. 
 
 They'll shape me in your arms, Janet, 
 
 A dove, but, and a swan. 
 And last they'll shape me in your arms 
 
 A mother-naked man : 
 Cast your green mantle over me, 
 
 I'll be myself again. 
 
 Janet takes her station at the Miles Cross, 
 pulls down the rider on the milk-white steed, 
 and holds her lover fast through all his changing 
 shapes. After her green mantle is thrown over 
 him, the wrathful voice of the Fairy Queen 
 is heard — 
 
 Up then spake the Queen of Fairies, 
 
 Out o' a bush o' rye, 
 "She's taen awa' the bonniest knight 
 
 In a' my companie. 
 
 "But had I kenned Tamlane," she says, 
 
 "I lady had borrowed thee — 
 I wad ta'en out thy twa grey een. 
 
 Put in twa een o' tree. 
 
 " Had I but kenned Tamlane," she says, 
 
 " Before ye cam frae hame — 
 I wad ta'en out your heart o' flesh. 
 
 Put in a heart o' stane.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 37 
 
 " Had I but had the wit yestreen 
 
 That I hae coft the day — 
 I paid my kane seven times to Hell, 
 
 Ere you'd been won away." 
 
 ]^ut the most famous earthly inhabitant of 
 Fairy-land was Thomas Learmont of Ercel- 
 doune, better known by his traditionary name 
 of Thomas the Rhymer, poet, prophet, and the 
 beloved of the Queen of Elf-land, who alone of 
 mortal men dared to kiss her lips, and whose 
 grey tower nods over the Leader, still regarded 
 with superstitious awe by the natives of that 
 district. This apparition True Thomas saw as 
 he lay stretched on the Huntly Bank on a 
 summer's day : — 
 
 Tnie Thomas lay on the Huntlie Bank ; 
 
 A ferlie he spied wi' his ee : 
 And there he saw a ladye bright, 
 
 Come riding doun by the Eildon tree. 
 
 Her shirt was o' the grass green silk, 
 
 Her mantle o' the velvet fyne : 
 At ilka tett of her horse's mane, 
 
 Hung fifty siller bells and nine. 
 
 True Thomas he pulled aff his cap, 
 
 And louted low down to his knee, 
 " All hail, thou mighty Queen of Heaven ! 
 
 For thy peer on earth I never did see."
 
 :;8 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 " O no, O no, Thomas," she said, 
 " That name does not belong to me ; 
 
 I am but the Queen of fair Elf-land, 
 That am hither come to \\%\\. thee. 
 
 " Harp and carp, Thomas," she said, 
 
 ' ' Harp and carp along wi' me ; 
 And if ye dare to kiss my lips. 
 
 Sure of your bodie I will be." 
 
 " Betide me weal, betide me woe. 
 That weird shall never daunton me." 
 
 Syne he has kissed her rosy lips. 
 All underneath the Eildon tree. 
 
 From that day for seven years Thomas was 
 seen no more among men. After that period 
 he returned and scattered abroad prophecies of 
 days of dool and woe to Scotland, when the 
 fields should be harvestless, and the hare bring 
 forth her young on the hearthstone of the castle ; 
 of storms raging from sea to sea, of disastrous 
 battle-fields, of the strange overflow of rivers, 
 and the final union of the crowns. When he left 
 Elf-land, he was bound to return at the pleasure 
 of its Queen. One day Thomas was feasting in 
 his own tower, when a messenger burst into the 
 apartment, and told that a doe and fawn of 
 wonderful beauty were pacing, without fear, and 
 silently as a dream, the streets of the little
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 39 
 
 village, Thomas knew the signal, and imme- 
 diately arose, followed the creatures into the 
 forest, and was never again seen on earth. 
 Had the Queen pined for her favourite ? To 
 what glory was he marshalled ? What weird 
 had he to dree ? His countrymen for centuries 
 believed that he was still alive in Fairy-land, 
 and looked for his return. 
 
 The district of country which produced the 
 Border Ballads — stretching from the cataract of 
 the Grey Mare's Tail, along the green valley of 
 the Yarrow, onward to where the castle-keep of 
 Norham blackens against the sinking sun, and 
 embracing, amongst other streams, the Tweed 
 and the waters of the Teviot and the Ettrick — is, 
 although somewhat limited in extent, by far the 
 most interesting in Scotland. It is a region for 
 the most part pastoral, with round swelling 
 hills of no great altitude, and valleys through 
 which run waters whose names are familiar to 
 every Scottish ear. The traveller passes in a 
 day's journey over fifty battle-fields, some famous, 
 some forgotten, descrying every few miles as 
 he goes, on the hill-side or up the retreating 
 glen, the grey peel of a border laird, roofless 
 and open to the sky, the walls crowned with
 
 40 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 long withered grasses, which sigh in the passing 
 wind, and half a dozen sheep feeding around its 
 base, with bits of straggling brambles sticking in 
 their wool ; or perhaps, as the day draws to a 
 close, the mightier ruin of the castle of some 
 feudal lord looms upon him through the fast 
 fading light. The whole district is full of asso- 
 ciations. Every stream has its tradition, every 
 glen is peopled by legends, every ruin is conse- 
 crated by a story of love or revenge. Genius 
 has thrown an additional charm over the country. 
 As you pace beside the crystal mirror of St Mary's 
 Loch, or visit the farm-house of Altrive, you 
 remember Hogg. The shade of Wordsworth 
 wanders along the silver course of the Yarrow ; 
 and when the swollen Tweed raves as it sweeps, 
 red and broad, round the ruins of Drj^burgh, 
 you think of him who rests there — the magician 
 asleep in the lap of legends old, the sorcerer 
 buried in the heart of the land he has made 
 enchanted. This region, so peaceful now, quietly 
 growing its harvests and fattening its flocks, was 
 in the olden time one great theatre of strife 
 and bloodshed. It was the battle-field of the 
 Percy and the Douglas ; and, to quote the old 
 chronicle —
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 41 
 
 There was never a time on the March partes, 
 
 Sen the Douglas and tlie Percy met, 
 But yt was marvell an the redde blude roune not 
 
 As the rane does in the stret. 
 
 The Kers, Scotts, Armstrongs, and other 
 Border clans, dwelt on the waters of the Ettrick, 
 the Whitadder, and the Teviot, and preyed on 
 England, Scotland, and on one another, with 
 great impartiality. Though the cloud of English 
 war first burst on the Border, and midnight was 
 reddened by flames from peel and farm-stead- 
 ing, and rendered hideous by the shouts of the 
 plunderers and the lowing of cattle driven off 
 with a tumult and rapidity utterly repugnant 
 to their meditative and decorous mode of life ; 
 — though the Jameses, in moments of unusual 
 vigour, suddenly appeared on the marches with 
 an army, and left dozens of the robbers waver- 
 ing in the wind over the gateways of their own 
 towers, — still Ishmael was untamed; in a week 
 Cumberland was swept, or the flocks of the 
 Lothian farmer driven off by the light of his 
 burning house. Crushed and broken, the spirit 
 of the Borderer was never subdued ; his hand 
 was against every man, and every man's hand 
 against him. " Forgive your enemies " was never
 
 42 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 a part of his creed ; and revenge, prompt and 
 terrible, was elevated into a chief place among 
 the virtues. He never forgot an injury ; and 
 although the insult was given in hot youth, and 
 years had elapsed, the avenger was silently upon 
 the track, and in grey hairs blood was exacted 
 for blood, and groan for groan. On one occa- 
 sion, Sir Robert Ker, the Warden of the Scottish 
 j\Iarch, was murdered by three Englishmen, two 
 of whom made their escape. After some time 
 they began to appear in public, and one of them 
 fixed his residence at a considerable distance 
 from the Scottish Border. On this becoming 
 known, two servants of the murdered man's son 
 passed into England during the night, slew him 
 in his own house, and brought the head to their 
 master in Edinburgh, who exposed it on a pole 
 in one of the public streets, and left it there to 
 wither in the sun like a gourd. In the reign of 
 James V., Albany, then Regent of the kingdom, 
 thirsting for an opportunity to gratify his private 
 revenge, invited Lord Home to a solemn council 
 to be held on State affairs at Edinburgh. When 
 the hapless chieftain arrived, he was seized, con- 
 demned on a charge of treason, and executed 
 along with his brother. Before sailing for
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 43 
 
 France, Albany appointed Sir Antony Darcy, a 
 French knight of great ability, to be Warden of 
 the East March in his absence. This Frenchman 
 was an object of intense hatred to the whole 
 clan whose leader had been slain. On the 
 occasion of a border riot, he encountered Sir 
 David Home, who reproached him with the 
 death of his chief. A scuffle ensued, and Darcy 
 sought refuge in flight. He was pursued for 
 miles ; at last his horse sank up to the haunches 
 in a morass. His enemies coming up, struck ofi" 
 his head, and Sir David Home, shearing off" his 
 long flowing hair, plaited it into a wreath, and 
 wore it as a trophy at his saddle-bow. From a 
 passage in the Memoirs of Beaugue, a French 
 officer who served in Scotland (quoted by Sir 
 Walter Scott in his " Minstrelsy "), we learn the 
 dreadful nature of the animosity which flamed 
 between the English and the marchmen. The 
 Castle of Fairnihirst being besieged by the Bor- 
 derers, and reduced to extremities, the com- 
 mandant crept through the breach made in the 
 wall, and surrendered himself to a French officer. 
 A Borderer immediately stept forward, and at 
 one blow struck the Englishman's head four 
 paces from his trunk. A hundred Scots rushed
 
 44 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 forward to wash their hands in his blood. After 
 the Scots had slain all their own prisoners, they 
 bought up those of the French, and their hatred 
 may be imagined, when it is not mentioned that 
 in a single instance they attempted to cheapen 
 the price. Beaugud mentions that he himself sold 
 a prisoner for a small horse to a Scot, who 
 doubtless conceived that he had secured the 
 luxury of killing an Englishman in the manner 
 after his own heart at a decided bargain. There 
 are some anecdotes preserved of Walter Scott of 
 Harden, which give a curious enough peep into 
 the domestic manners of a Border chief Harden 
 married the Flower of Yarrow, who bore him 
 six stalwart sons, and it sometimes hapj^ened, 
 when the giants strode in to dinner with appal- 
 ling appetites, whetted by the chase and the 
 mountain breeze, they found, on uncovering the 
 dishes, a pair of clean spurs in each, placed 
 there by the fair hands of the Flower herself 
 That night an English farmer would mourn over 
 empty stalls. A prompt grim old man w^as the 
 Laird of Harden, — no danger of his armour 
 rusting, or grass growing beneath his horse's 
 hoofs. On one occasion his youngest son was 
 slain in a fray with the Scotts of Gilmanscleugh,
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 45 
 
 but the old warrior had no tears to shed over 
 his youngest born. The Flower of Yarrow 
 might throw herself on the body of her dead 
 son in clamorous grief That was what women 
 were fit for. He had other work to do. His 
 sons flew to arms, and were eager for revenge. 
 Harden quietly locked them up in their own 
 tower, and put the keys in his pocket, letting 
 their fierce hearts fret themselves out there. He 
 then mounted his horse and rode to Edinburgh, 
 where he proclaimed the crime, and gained from 
 the Crown the gift of his enemies' lands. He 
 rode back as rapidly as he had come, the charter 
 in his hands. Releasing his sons, he cried, with 
 a gleam in his grey eye, " To horse, lads, and let 
 us take possession. The lands of Gilmanscleugh 
 are well worth a dead son!" Educated in the 
 belief that plunder was the whole duty of man, 
 and revenge the most exalted virtue, the Bor- 
 derer when brought to suffer, whether by royal 
 authority or at the hands of an opposing clan, 
 met his fate with an unfaltering heart. It was 
 a misfortune, of course, to be hanged, a thing to 
 be avoided if possible ; but he could not feel 
 that he was a criminal, and for him the gallows 
 had no ignominy. He knew that his execu-
 
 46 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 tioners merited the same fate as himself, and his 
 last thought on earth was the comforting one, 
 that in all probability they would meet it one 
 of these days — consolation dashed next moment 
 by the thought that he could not be there to 
 see. Pity that ! So a curse to his foes, to his 
 
 friends the stern'st goodnight, and now , 
 
 Yet these boisterous men had their virtues. 
 They were possessed of a rude generosity, and 
 would go through fire and water and dare cap- 
 tivity to save a friend. They were civilised 
 enough to abhor wanton bloodshed ; they were 
 savage enough to hate like death all lying 
 and deceit. When a prisoner was dismissed on 
 parole, he transmitted his ransom, or, failing that, 
 returned into the hands of his captor. They 
 sacredly observed their word, and a bargain 
 sealed by a clash of their iron palms was in- 
 violable as a usurer's bond. Deep down in their 
 grim hearts dwelt tears and woman's tender- 
 ness, fountains which, if they seldom overflowed, 
 never entirely dried up. One of the Armstrongs, 
 before he was executed in Edinburgh for the 
 murder of Sir John Carmichael, sang the follow- 
 ing lament : —
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 47 
 
 This night is my departing night, 
 
 For here nae langer must I stay ; 
 There's neither friend nor foe o' mine 
 
 But wishes me away. 
 
 What I hae done thro' lack o' wit 
 
 I never never can recall ; 
 I hope ye're a' my friends as yet, 
 
 Goodnight, and joy be with you all. 
 
 And a strain is put into the mouth of Lord 
 Maxwell, on his leaving Scotland for France a 
 banished man, which suggested "Childe Harold's 
 Goodnight;" but the Border lord's lament to 
 " Dumfries, his proper place," and " Carlaverock 
 Fair," surpasses in tenderness and pathos the 
 modern poet singing as he gazed on England 
 like a cloud on the horizon, the sun setting 
 behind him in the splendid sea. 
 
 In the Border Ballads, this savage state of 
 society, with its strife and turmoil, its rude noble- 
 ness and generosity, is faithfully represented. 
 We open their pages, and find ourselves in a new 
 world. The Scotch moss-troopers have been 
 across the Borders with the dawn, and are now 
 pushing rapidly homeward with flocks of sheep 
 and a hundred head of cattle. The alarm has 
 spread for miles, and Cumberland is mounting 
 in haste with spear and lance. Across barren
 
 48 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 waste and up steep ravine a bloodhound is 
 already baying on the robbers' track. Men are 
 posted on every ford on the Liddcl ; and afar 
 on the Souter Moor, Will, stalwart Wat, and 
 long Aicky are sitting, with a sleut-dog on the 
 watch. We have fairly trapped the Scots to- 
 day ; and before night there will be many an 
 empty saddle in their troop. Here is part of 
 the rude song of one of the sufferers in the 
 raid : — 
 
 Sleep'ry Sim of the Lamb-hill, 
 
 And snoring Jock of Suport-mill, 
 
 Ye are baith right het and fou ; 
 
 But my wae wakens na you. 
 
 Last night I saw a sorry sight — 
 
 Nought left me o' four-and-twenty guide ousen and ky, 
 
 My weel-ridden gelding and a white quey, 
 
 But a toom byre and a wide, 
 
 And the twelve nogs on ilka side. 
 
 Fy lads ! shout a' a' a' a' a' 
 
 My gear's a' gane. 
 
 Weel may ye ken 
 
 Last night I was right scarce o' men ; 
 
 But Toppet Hob o' the Mains had guestened in my house by 
 
 chance. 
 I set him to wear the fore-door wi' a spear, while I kept the 
 
 back-door wi' a lance ; 
 But they hae mn him thro' the thick o' the thie, and broke 
 
 his knee-pan,
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 4g 
 
 And the mergh o' his shin-bane has run down on his spur- 
 leather whang ; 
 
 He's lame while he lives and where're he may gang. 
 Fy, lads ! shout a' a' a' a' a' 
 My gear's a' gane. 
 
 Battle is an everyday occurrence, and wounds 
 and dislocations are matters of course. Tush, 
 man, don't look so white, tic up the ugly thing 
 with a napkin ; it is your turn to-day, it may be 
 mine to-morrow. Death, too, is always walking 
 about on the Borders ; even the little "children 
 have seen him, and know his face. The older 
 troopers when they meet him give him good 
 day, like a common acquaintance, and some of 
 the more familiar stay for a moment to bandy a 
 grim jest or two with him. 
 
 Ane gat a twist o' the craig, 
 
 Ane gat a punch o' the wame ; 
 Symy Haw gat lamed of a leg, 
 And syne ran bellowing hame. 
 Hoot, hoot, the auld man's slain outright ! 
 Lay him now wi' his face doun — he's a sorrowful sight. 
 Janet, thou donet, 
 I'll lay my best bonnet, 
 Thou gets a new gudeman afore it be night. 
 
 A fit place, truly, to jest about a new husband ; 
 
 the old one lying so still there, face downward, 
 
 on the trampled grass. 
 
 D
 
 50 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 In the ballad entitled "Jamie Telfer," we 
 have a spirited description of a foray, and the 
 subsequent pursuit and rescue of the prey. The 
 Captain of Bewcastle had carried off Jamie's 
 cattle, and the ruined man starts up, " leaving a 
 greeting wife and bairnies three," and runs ten 
 miles afoot over the new fallen snow to summon 
 aid. He alarms peel after peel, and the awaked 
 inmates hurry on jack, and grasp lance, and 
 push on in hot haste to Branksome Ha', where 
 Buccleuch dwelt in a sort of feudal state. " Wha 
 brings the fray to me .^ " cried the old lord, as 
 the riders clattered up to his gates — 
 
 *' It's I, Jamie Telfer o' the fair Dodhead, 
 
 And a harried man I think I be ! 
 There's nought left in the fair Dodhead 
 
 But a greeting wife and bairnies three." 
 
 " Alack for wae ! " quoth the guid auld lord, 
 " And ever my heart is %vae for thee ! 
 
 But fye, gar ciy on Willie, my son, 
 To see that he come to me speedilie. 
 
 "Gar warn the water braid and wide, 
 
 Gar warn it sune and hastilie ; 
 They that winna ride for Telfer's kye, 
 
 Let them never look in the face o' me. 
 
 " Warn W'at o' Harden and his sons, 
 Wi' them will Borthwick water ride ;
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. s i 
 
 Warn Gandilands and Allan-haugh, 
 And Gilmanscleugh and Commonside." 
 
 The Scotts they rade, the Scotts they ran, 
 
 Sae starkly and sae steadilie ; 
 And aye tlie ower-word o' tlie tlirang 
 
 Was — " Rise for Branksome readilie ! " 
 
 With their number augmented, they ride for- 
 ward, and in a short time come in sight of the 
 Captain of Bewcastle and his men driving the 
 booty straight for England. As was to be ex- 
 pected, httle time is wasted in words : 
 
 Then tilt they gaed \vi' heart and hand, 
 The blows fell thick as bickering hail ; 
 
 And mony a horse ran masterless, 
 And mony a comely cheek was pale. 
 
 But Willie was stricken ower the head, 
 
 And thro' the knapscap the sword has gane, 
 
 And Harden grat for very rage, 
 
 When Willie on the grand lay slain. 
 
 But he's ta'en aff his gude steel cap, 
 And thrice he's waved it in the air ; 
 
 The Dinlay snaw was ne'er mair white 
 Nor the lyart locks of Harden's hair. 
 
 * ' Revenge ! revenge ! " auld Wat gan cry ; 
 
 " Fye, lads, lay on them cruellie, 
 We'll ne'er see Teviotside again. 
 
 Or Willie's death revenged shall be."
 
 52 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 O many a horse ran masterless, 
 
 The splintered lances flew on hie ; 
 But or they war to the Kershope ford, 
 
 The Scotts had gotten the victory. 
 
 Having now secured Jamie's cattle, the idea 
 suggests itself to one of the party that they 
 might improve the occasion by robbing the 
 Captain's house : 
 
 There was a wild gallant among us a'. 
 His name was Watty wi' the Wudspurs, 
 
 Cried — " On for his house in Stanegirthside, 
 If ony man will ride with us ! " 
 
 When they cam to the Stanegirthside, 
 They dang wi' trees and burst the door. 
 
 They loosed out a' the Captain's kye, 
 And set them forth our lads before. 
 
 There was an auld \vyk ayont the fire, 
 
 A wee bit o' the Captain's kin : 
 " Whae dar loose out the Captain's kye, 
 
 Or answer to him and his men?" 
 
 "It's I, Watty Wudspurs, loose the kye, 
 I winna layne my name frae thee ! 
 
 And I will loose out the Captain's kye 
 In scorn of a' his men and he." 
 
 When they cam to the fair Dodhead, 
 They were a wellcum sight to see ! 
 
 For instead of his ain ton milk kye, 
 Jamie Telfer has gotten thirty and three.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 53 
 
 And he has paid the rescue shot, 
 
 Baith wi' goud and white monie ; 
 And at "the burial o' Willie Scott 
 
 I wat was mony a weeping ec. 
 
 But "Kinmont Willie" is the finest of all 
 these Ballads ; remarkable for the daring deed 
 it celebrates, and the light and laughing scorn 
 of danger which it exhibits. The moss-trooper 
 encounters peril with as gay a heart as he opens 
 a dance with a rustic beauty at a Border fair. 
 Lord Scroope and Sheriff Salkelde have suc- 
 ceeded in capturing Kinmont Willie, a robber 
 whose exploits were well known on the marches : 
 
 They band his legs beneath the steed, 
 They tied his hands behind his back ; 
 
 They guarded him five-some on each side, 
 And they brought him ower the Liddel-rack, 
 
 They led him thro' the Liddel-rack, 
 
 And also thro' the Carlisle sands ; 
 They brought him to Carlisle castel. 
 
 To be at my Lord Scroope's commands. 
 
 " My hands are tied, but my tongue is free, 
 And whae will dare this deed avow. 
 
 Or answer by the Border law, 
 
 Or answer to the bauld Buccleuch ? " 
 
 " Now hand thy tongue, thou rank riever ! 
 
 There's never a Scot shall set thee free ; 
 Before ye cross my castle yate, 
 
 I trow ye shall take farewell o' me."
 
 54 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 " Fear ye na that, my lord," quo' Willie ; 
 
 " By the faith o' my body, Lord Scroope," he said, 
 ' ' I never yet lodged in a hostelrie 
 
 But I paid my lawing before I gaed." 
 
 So while Willie lies in the central dungeon under 
 a load of clanking chains, thinking on his sins, 
 and the cheerless hours creep on that bring his 
 death on Haribee, intelligence of the capture 
 reaches Buccleuch in Branksome Hall. How 
 the blood of the Border chieftain boils up — 
 
 He has ta'en the table wi' his hand, 
 He garr'd the red wine spring on hie ; 
 
 "Now Christ's curse on my head," he said, 
 " But avenged of Lord Scroope I'll be. 
 
 " O is my basnet a ^^^dow's curtch, 
 Or my lance a wand o' the willow tree, 
 
 Or my arm a ladye's lilye hand, 
 Tliat an English lord should lightly me? 
 
 "And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, 
 
 Against the truce of Border tide ? 
 And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch 
 
 Is Keeper here on the Scottish side ? 
 
 "And have they ta'en him, Kinmont Willie, 
 
 Withouten either dread or fear ? 
 And forgotten that the bauld Buccleuch 
 
 Can back a steed and shake a spear?" 
 
 Kinmont is to be delivered, and the rescuing 
 party is described. Note the characteristic touch
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 55 
 
 of Border humour at the close. It is quite an 
 exquisite jest to run a man through the body, 
 and the want of appreciation of the joke on the 
 part of the skewered makes it all the more de- 
 lightful : 
 
 lie has called him forty marchmen bauld, 
 Were kinsmen to the bauld Buccleuch ; 
 
 With spur on heel, and splent on spauld. 
 And gleuves of green and feathers blue. 
 
 There were five and five before them a', 
 Wi' hunting-horns and bugles bright ; 
 
 And five and five came vvi' Buccleuch, 
 Like warden's men arrayed for fight. 
 
 And five and five, like a mason gang, 
 That carried the ladders lang and hie ; 
 
 And five and five, like broken men. 
 
 And so they reached the Woodhouselee. 
 
 And as we crossed the Bateable land, 
 When to the English side we held, 
 
 The first o' men that we met wi', 
 
 Whae sould it be but the fause Sakelde ? 
 
 " Where be ye gaun, ye hunters keen ?" 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; " come tell to me ?" 
 
 *' We go to hunt an English stag 
 Has trespassed on the Scots countrie." 
 
 " Where be ye gaun, ye marshal men ?" 
 Quo' fause Sakelde; " come tell me true?" 
 
 " We go to catch a rank riever 
 
 Has broken faith wi' the bauld Buccleuch."
 
 56 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 " Where are ye gaun, ye mason lads ?" 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; " come tell to me?" 
 
 ' ' We gang to harry a corbie's nest 
 That wons not far frae Woodhouselee." 
 
 " Where be ye gaun, ye broken men ?" 
 Quo' fause Sakelde ; " come tell to me?" 
 
 Now Dickie of Dryhope led that band, 
 And the nevir a word of lear had he. 
 
 " Why trespass ye on the English side ? 
 
 Row-footed outlaws, stand !" quo' he. 
 The nevir a word had Dickie to say, 
 
 Sae he thrust the lance through his fause bodie. 
 
 Here is the rescue and conclusion : — 
 
 W^i' coulters and wi' forehammers, 
 W'e garred the bars bang meiTilie, 
 
 Until we came to the inner prison, 
 Where Willie o' Kinmont he did lie. 
 
 And when we cam to the inner prison. 
 Where W' illic o' Kinmont he did lie — 
 
 ' ' O sleep ye, wake ye, Kinmont Willie, 
 Upon the day that thou's to die?" 
 
 " O I sleep saft, and I wake aft ; 
 
 It's lang since sleeping was fleyed frae me ! 
 Gie my service back to my wife and bairns, 
 
 And a' gude fellows that speir for me." 
 
 Then Red Rowan has hente him up, 
 The starkest man in Teviotdale — 
 
 "Abide, abide, now, Red Rowan, 
 Till of my Lord Scroope I take farewell.
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 57 
 
 " Farewell, farewell, my glide Lord Scroope, 
 My gude Lord Scroope, farewell," he cried ; 
 
 " I'll pay you for my lodging maill, 
 
 "When first we meet on the Border side." 
 
 Then shoulder high, with shout and cry, 
 
 We bore him down the ladder lang ; 
 At eveiy stride Red Rowan made, 
 
 I wot the Kinmonl's aims played clang ! 
 
 " O mony a time," quo' Kinmont Willie, 
 
 " I have ridden a horse baith wild and wood. 
 
 But a rougher beast than Red Rowan, 
 I ween my legs have ne'er bestrode." 
 
 " And mony a time," quo' Kinmont Willie, 
 " I've pricked a horse out once the furs ; 
 
 But since the day I backed a steed, 
 I never wore sic cumbrous spurs." 
 
 We scarce had won the Staneshaw-bank, 
 When a' the Carlisle bells were rung. 
 
 And a thousand men on horse and foot 
 Cam wi' the keen Lord Scroope along. 
 
 Buccleuch has turned to Eden Water, 
 Even where it flowed frae bank to brim ; 
 
 And he has plunged in wi' a' his band, 
 
 And safely swam them through the stream. 
 
 He turned him to the other side. 
 
 And at Lord Scroope his glove flung he — 
 
 " If ye like na my visit in merry England, 
 In fair Scotland come visit me."
 
 58 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 All sore astonished stood Lord Scroope, 
 
 He stood as still as rock of stane ; 
 He scarcely dared to trew his eyes, 
 
 When thro' the water they had gane. 
 
 "He's either himsel' a de^^l frae hell, 
 Or else his mother a witch maun be ; 
 
 I wadna hae ridden that wan water 
 For a' the gowd in Christentie." 
 
 So all those fierce spirits have stormed them- 
 selves out, and we learn the stories of their 
 strifes and hatreds, their generosities and re- 
 venges, their burnings and plunderings, from 
 the strains of a few wandering and forgotten 
 minstrels. They were brave men, who did what 
 work they had to do with promptitude and 
 vigour, dandled children proudly enough on their 
 knees, and when it came to that at last, they 
 clashed down in harness, and death and pain 
 got as few groans out of them as out of most. 
 Times are changed now, however. Their sons 
 have the same bold hearts and strong arms, but 
 they are turned to other uses, and worn out in 
 other tasks. The stream which of yore rushed 
 wastefully from fount to sea, is banked and 
 bridged ; it turns the wheels of innumerable mills, 
 carries on its bosom barge and stately ship, 
 sweeps through mighty towns where thousands
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 59 
 
 live and die beneath an ever-brooding canopy of 
 smoke, and melts at last into peaceful ocean- 
 rest, a labourer, grimed and worn ; but its cradle 
 is still, as of old, on the mountain-top among the 
 sacred splendours of the dawn, its companions 
 the flying sunbeams and the troops of stars, its 
 nurses the dews of heaven and the weeping 
 clouds. 
 
 There are modern writers who conceive that 
 man is only poetical when he clanks about in 
 mail and swears by St Bridget ; when he in- 
 habits an immense castle turreted and moated, 
 with a background of savage pines, amongst 
 which the winds make a great roaring of winter 
 nights ; spends his forenoons amongst his dogs, 
 or amuses himself with flying his falcon at 
 the blue-legged heron that rises screaming from 
 the weedy pool ; and they are careful to inform 
 the world that the ballad is the most natural 
 form of poetry, and ought to be the model of 
 all future compositions. The wisdom of this 
 seems very questionable. The most profitless 
 work on this planet is the simulation of ancient 
 ballads ; to hold water in a sieve is the merest 
 joke to it. A man may as well try to recall 
 yesterday, or to manufacture tradition or anti-
 
 6o SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 quity, with the moss of ages on them. It has 
 been attempted by men of the highest genius, 
 but in no case with encouraging success. If 
 ever a man was quahfied for the task, it was 
 Sir Walter Scott. No one hved more in the 
 past than he. He was more famihar with the 
 men of the Middle Ages than with the men who 
 brushed past him in Princes Street ; and yet 
 his efforts in the ballad form — beautiful and 
 spirited poems as they all are — are devoid of the 
 homely garrulousness, the simple-heartedness, 
 the carelessness and unconsciousness which give 
 such a charm to the productions of the old 
 minstrels. There is no modern attempt which 
 could by any chance or possibility be mistaken 
 for an original. You read the date upon it as 
 legibly as upon the letter you received yester- 
 day. However dexterous the workman, he is 
 discovered — a word blabs, the turn of a phrase 
 betrays him. Simplicity, which is seen at a 
 glance to be affected, carelessness elaborately 
 feigned, and modes of thought and expression 
 which have no correspondence with the feelings 
 or the language of living men, are not orna- 
 mental to any form of composition. Why 
 should we go to steel-clad barons and rough-
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 6i 
 
 riding moss-troopers ; is there not sufficient 
 poetry in the hfe which environs us to-day ? It 
 is, of course, the merest truism, that in every age 
 and under every disguise — beating beneath the 
 mail of the Crusader or the vest of the EngHsh 
 gentleman — the same human heart sorrows and 
 rejoices, and that all poetry resides in it, and 
 not in its encasement of Yorkshire broadcloth 
 or Spanish steel ; but it is astonishing how fre- 
 quently a truism which has passed for genera- 
 tions among men like current coin, would startle 
 them if they only took the trouble to examine 
 it. The more generally a thing is supposed to 
 be believed by mankind, the less real faith there 
 is in it. Handle your truism, and it explodes 
 beneath your unsuspecting nose like a bomb- 
 shell. Carlyle utters the merest truisms, and 
 what a strange sound that is ; — there is again 
 a prophet amongst men ! Our ballad poetry is 
 valuable; for certain special merits of genuineness 
 and nature, second only to the Shakespearian 
 drama ; but why it should be chosen as a model, 
 and sedulously imitated, is not altogether evi- 
 dent. Let genius have free range and scope ; it 
 has its own laws which it must obey, and no 
 others ; and, although ever new, its develop-
 
 62 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 
 
 mcnts are ever beautiful and harmonious. 
 Poetry has a value in right of its truth and 
 beauty ; it has also a value of an historical and 
 illustrative nature ; the first may decrease, and 
 be less regarded from the changing habits and 
 feelings of society ; the second increases neces- 
 sarily as the ages roll. Every bygone period of 
 the world has reflected itself in its contemporary 
 poetry. History storms on with siege and battle 
 and political crisis, but Poetry runs alongside 
 supplementing History, smoothing its austerities, 
 filling up its chasms and interstices with music, 
 catching up the Jife of the streets and the 
 current talk and humours of men, chronicling 
 the emotions, the desires that inflame, the fears 
 and spectres that daunt the heart. The Ballads 
 are full of the turbulent times which environed 
 their authors. When we wish to know some- 
 thing of the fourteenth century, we derive our 
 knowledge, not so much from formal history, as 
 from Chaucer's picture of the pilgrims in the 
 room at the Tabard, or his description of their 
 ride to Canterbury on the following morning. 
 Though so long ago, we can see the flutter of 
 their dresses and hear them laughing yet. The 
 reader of Pope values him, not so much for his
 
 SCOTTISH BALLADS. 63 
 
 splendid antitheses and his glittering wit, but 
 because in his pages he comes face to face with 
 the century, breathes its very air, walks into 
 its saloons, sits among beruffed and rapiered 
 dandies and beauties with patches on their 
 cheeks, hears all their delicious scandals, and 
 the good things of the wits ; and whether in- 
 tentionally or unintentionally — perhaps all the 
 better and completer that it is done without 
 special purpose or design — the day which is now 
 passing will be preserved for future men in its 
 poetry. And while history shall repeat the 
 names of Alma and Sebastopol, and the story 
 of the silent Emperor across the water, Tenny- 
 son and the Brownings will open the doors of our 
 houses, so that readers may see the faces, hear 
 the voices, and note, if they choose, the very 
 furniture of the rooms, with the spaniel asleep 
 on the rug, of the men who are, living now.
 
 AN ESSAY ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 HE discovery of a grey hair when you 
 are brushing out your whiskers of a 
 morning — first fallen flake of the com- 
 ing snows of age — is a disagreeable thing ; so is 
 the intimation from your old friend and comrade 
 that his eldest daughter is about to be married ; 
 so are flying twinges of gout, shortness of breath 
 on the hill-side, the fact that even the moderate 
 use of your friend's wines at dinner upsets you. 
 These things are disagreeable, because they tell 
 you that you are no longer young — that you 
 have passed through youth, are now in middle 
 age, and faring onward to the shadows in which 
 somewhere a grave is hid. 
 
 Thirty is the age of the gods ; and the first 
 grey hair informs you that you art at least ten 
 or twelve years older than that. Apollo is never 
 middle-aged, but you are. Olympus lies several 
 years behind you ; you have lived for more than 
 half your natural term ; and you know the road
 
 ESSA Y ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 65 
 
 which lies before you is very different from that 
 which lies behind. You have yourself changed. 
 In the present man of forty-two you can barely 
 recognise the boy of nineteen that once was. 
 Hope sang on the sunny slope of life's hill as 
 you ascended ; she is busily singing the old 
 song in the ears of a new generation, but you 
 have passed out of the reach of her voice. You 
 have tried your strength ; you have learned pre- 
 cisely what you can do ; you have thrown the 
 hammer so often that you know to an inch how 
 far you can throw it — at least you are a great 
 fool if you do not. The world, too, has been 
 looking on, and has made up its mind about 
 you. It has appraised you as an auctioneer 
 appraises an estate or the furniture of a house. 
 " Once you served Prince Florizel and wore 
 three pile," but the brave days of campaign- 
 ing are over. What to you are canzonets 
 and love-songs .'' The mighty passion is vapid 
 and second-hand. Cupid will never more 
 flutter rosily over your head ; at most he will 
 only flutter in an uninspired fashion above 
 the head of your daughter-in-law. You have 
 sailed round the world, seen all its wonders, and 
 come home again, and must adorn your dwell-
 
 66 ESSA Y ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 ing, as best you can, with the rare things you 
 have picked up on the way. At hfe's table you 
 have tasted of every dish except the Covered 
 One, and of that you will have your share by 
 and by. The road over which you are fated 
 to march is more than half traversed, and at 
 every onward stage the scenery is certain to 
 become more sombre, and in due time the 
 twilight will fall. To you, on your onward 
 journey, there will be little to astonish, little 
 to delight. The Interpreter's House is behind 
 where you first read the poets ; so is also the 
 House Beautiful with the Three Damsels, where 
 you first learned to love. As you pass onward 
 you are attended by your henchman Memory, 
 who may be either the cheerfullcst or gloomiest 
 of companions. You have come up out of the 
 sweet-smelling valley flowers ; you are now on 
 the broken granite, seamed and wrinkled with 
 dried up water-courses ; and before you, striking 
 you full in the face, is the broad disc of the 
 solitary setting sun. 
 
 One does not like to be an old fogy, and still 
 less perhaps does one like to own to being one. 
 You may remember when you were the youngest 
 person in every company into which you en-
 
 ESSAY ON AN OLD S UBJE CT. 67 
 
 tercd, and how it pleased you to think how 
 precociously clever you were, and how opulent 
 in Time. You were introduced to the great 
 Mr Blank — at least twenty years older than 
 yourself — and could not help thinking how 
 much greater you would be than Mr Blank by 
 the time you reached his age. But pleasant as 
 it is to be the youngest member of every com- 
 pany, that pleasure does not last for ever. As 
 years pass on you do not quite develop into the 
 genius you expected ; and the new generation 
 makes its appearance and pushes you from your 
 stool. You make the disagreeable discovery 
 that there is a younger man of promise in the 
 world than even you ; then the one younger 
 man becomes a dozen younger men ; then 
 younger men come flowing in like waves ; and 
 before you know where you are, by this im- 
 pertinent younger generation — fellows who were 
 barely breeched when you won your first fame 
 — you are shouldered into Old Fogydom, and 
 your staid ways are laughed at, perhaps, by the 
 irreverent scoundrels into the bargain. There 
 is nothing more wonderful in youth than this 
 wealth in Time. It is only a Rothschild who 
 can indulge in the amusement of tossing a sove-
 
 68 ESSA V ON A A' OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 reign to a beggar. It is only a young man who 
 can dream and build castles in the air. What 
 are twenty years to a young fellow of twenty .-' 
 An ample air-built stage for his pomps and 
 triumphal processions. What are twenty years 
 to a middle-aged man of forty-five ? The fall- 
 ing of the curtain, the covering up of the empty 
 boxes, the screwing out of the gas, and the 
 counting of the money taken at the doors, with 
 the notion, perhaps, that the performance was 
 rather a poor thing. It is with a feeling curi- 
 ously compounded of pity and envy that one 
 listens to young men talking of what they are 
 going to do. They will light their torches at the 
 sun ! They will regenerate the world ! They 
 will abolish war, and hand in the Millennium! 
 What pictures they will paint ! What poems 
 they will write ! One knows while one listens 
 how it will all end. But it is Nature's way ; she 
 is always sending on her young generations full 
 of hope. The Atlantic roller bursts in harmless 
 foam among the .shingle and driftwood at your 
 feet, but the next, nothing daunted by the fate 
 of its predecessor, comes on with threatening 
 crest, as if to carry everything before it. And 
 so it will be for ever and ever. The world could
 
 USSA Y ON AN OLD S UBJECT. 69 
 
 not get on else. My experience is of use only 
 to myself. I cannot bequeath it to my son as I 
 can my casli. Every human being must start 
 untrammelled and work out the problem for 
 himself For a couple of thousand years now 
 the preacher has been crying out Vanitas vani- 
 tatiiin, but no young man takes him at his word. 
 The blooming apple must grate in the young 
 man's teeth before he owns that it is dust and 
 ashes. Young people will take nothing on hear- 
 say. I remember, when a lad, of Todd's Student's 
 Matiual falling into my hands. I perused therein 
 a solemn warning against novel reading. Nor 
 did the reverend compiler speak without autho- 
 rity. He stated that he had read the works of 
 Fielding, Smollett, Sir Walter Scott, American 
 Cooper, James, and the rest, and he laid his 
 hand on his heart and assured his young friends 
 that in each of these works, even the best of 
 them, were subtle snares and gilded baits for 
 the soul. These books they were adjured to 
 avoid, as they would a pestilence or a raging 
 fire. It was this alarming passage in the trans- 
 atlantic Divine's treatise that first made a novel 
 reader of me. I was not content to accept his 
 experience : I must see for myself. Every one
 
 70 ESSAY ON AN OLD S UBJE CT. 
 
 must begin at the beginning; and it is just as 
 well. If a new generation were starting with 
 the wisdom of its elders, what would be the 
 consequence ? Would there be any love-making 
 twenty years after ? Would there be any fine 
 extravagance ? Would there be any lending 
 of money ? Would there be any noble friend- 
 ships such as that of Damon and Pythias, 
 or of David and Jonathan, or even of our 
 own Beaumont and Fletcher, who had purse, 
 wardrobe, and genius in common ? It is ex- 
 tremely doubtful. Vanitas vanitatinn is a bad 
 doctrine to begin life with. For the plant 
 Experience to be of any worth, a man must 
 grow it for himself. 
 
 The man of forty-five or thereby is compelled 
 to own, if he sits down to think about it, that 
 existence is very different from what it was 
 twenty years previously. His life is more than 
 half spent, to begin with. He is like one who 
 has spent seven hundred and fifty pounds of his 
 original patrimony of a thousand. Then from 
 his life there has departed that "wild freshness 
 of morning" which Tom Moore sang about. In 
 his onward journey he is not likely to encounter 
 anything absolutely new. He has already con-
 
 ESSAY ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 71 
 
 jugated every tense of the verb To Be. He 
 has been in love twice or thrice. He has been 
 married — only once, let us trust. In all pro- 
 bability he is the father of a fine family of chil- 
 dren. He has been ill, and he has recovered ; 
 he has experienced triumph and failure ; he has 
 known what it is to have money in his purse, 
 and what it is to want money in his purse. 
 Sometimes he has been a debtor, sometimes he 
 has been a creditor. He has stood by the brink 
 of half a dozen graves, and heard the clod falling 
 on the coffin-lid. All this he has experienced ; 
 the only new thing before him is death, and 
 even to that he has at various times approxi- 
 mated. Life has lost most of its unexpected- 
 ness, its zest, its novelty, and has become like a 
 worn shoe or a thread-bare doublet. To him 
 there is no new thing under the sun. But then 
 this growing old is a gradual process ; and zest, 
 sparkle, and novelty are not essential to happi- 
 ness. The man who has reached five-and-forty 
 has learned what a pleasure there is in custom- 
 ariness and use and wont — in having everything 
 around him familiar, tried, confidential. Life 
 may have become humdrum, but his tastes have 
 become humdrum too. Novelty annoys him.
 
 / - 
 
 £SSA y ox AX OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 the intrusion of an unfamiliar object puts him 
 out A pair of newly embroidered slippers 
 would be much more ornamental than the well- 
 worn articles which lie warming for him before 
 the library- fire ; but then he cannot get his feet 
 into them so easily. He is contented with his 
 old friends — a new friend would break the 
 charm of the old familiar faces. He loves the 
 hedgerows, and the fields, and the brook, and 
 the bridg^e which he sees ever\- dav, and he 
 would not exchange them for Alps and glaciers. 
 By tlie time a man has reached forty-five he lies 
 as comfortably in his habits as the silk-worm in 
 its cocoon. On tlie whole, I take it that middle 
 age is a happier period than youth. In the 
 entire circle of the year there are no days so 
 delightful as those of a fine October, when the 
 trees are bare to the mild heavens, and the red 
 leaves bestrew tlie road, and you can feel the 
 breath of winter, morning and evening — no days 
 so calm, so tenderly solemn, and with such a 
 reverent meekness in the air. The lyrical uj>- 
 burst of the lark at such a time would be incon- 
 gruous. The only sounds suitable to the season 
 are the rust)- caw of the homeward-sliding rook 
 — tlie creaking of the wain returning emptj*
 
 ESS A V ON AN OLD S UBJECT. 73 
 
 from the farm-yard. There is an " unrest, which 
 men miscall delight," and of that "unrest" youth 
 is, for the most part, composed. From this 
 middle age is free. The setting suns of youth 
 are crimson and gold ; the setting suns of middle 
 
 age 
 
 Do take a sober colouring from an eye 
 That hath kept watch o'er man's mortality. 
 
 Youth is the slave of beautiful faces, and fine 
 eyes, and silver-sweet voices — they distract, 
 madden, alarm. To middle age women are 
 but the gracefullest statues, the loveliest poems. 
 They delight but hurt not ; they awake no 
 passion, they heighten no pulse. And the im- 
 aginative man of middle age possesses after a 
 fashion all the passionate turbulence, all the 
 keen delights, of his earlier days. They are not 
 dead — they are dwelling in the antechamber of 
 Memory, awaiting his call ; and when they are 
 called they wear an ethereal something which is 
 not their own. The Muses are the daughters of 
 Memory : youth is the time to love, but middle 
 age the period at which the best love-poetry is 
 written. And middle age too — the early period 
 of it, when a man is master of his instruments, 
 and knows what he can do — is the best season
 
 74 ESS A V OXA.y OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 of intellectual activity. The playful capering 
 flames of a newly kindled fire is a pretty sight, 
 but not nearly so effective — any housewife will 
 tell you — as when the flames are gone, and the 
 whole mass of fuel has become caked into a 
 sober redness that emits a steady glow. There 
 is nothinsf crood in this world which time does 
 not improve. A silver wedding is better than 
 the voice of the Epithalamium ; and the most 
 beautiful face that ever was, is made yet more 
 beautiful when there is laid upon it the rever- 
 ence of silver hairs. 
 
 There is a certain even-handed justice in 
 Time ; and for what he takes away he gives us 
 something in return. He robs us of elasticity of 
 limb and spirit, and in its place he brings tran- 
 quillity and repose — the mild autumnal weather 
 of the soul. He takes away Hope, but he gives 
 us Memory. And the settled, unfluctuating 
 atmosphere of middle age is no bad exchange 
 for the stormful emotions, the passionate crises 
 and suspenses of the earlier day. The constitu- 
 tional melancholy of the middle-aged man is a 
 dim background on which the pale flowers of 
 life are brought out in the tenderest relief. 
 Youth is the time for action, middle age for
 
 £SSA V ON AN OL D SUBJECT. 75 
 
 thought. In youth wc hurriedly crop the 
 herbage ; in middle age, in a sheltered place, we 
 chew the ruminative cud. In youth, red-handed, 
 red-ankled, with songs and shoutings, we gather 
 in the grapes ; in middle age, under our own fig- 
 tree, or in quiet gossip with a friend, we drink 
 the wine free of all turbid lees. Youth is a 
 lyrical poet, middle age a quiet essayist, fond of 
 recounting experiences, and of appending a moral 
 to every incident. In youth the world is strange 
 and unfamiliar, novel and exciting, everything 
 wears the face and garb of a stranger; in middle 
 aee the world is covered over with reminiscence 
 as with a garment : it is made homely with 
 usage, it is made sacred with graves. The 
 middle-aged man can go nowhere without tread- 
 ing the mark of his own footsteps ; and in 
 middle age, too, provided the man has been a 
 good and an ordinarily happy one, along with 
 this mental tranquillity there comes a corre- 
 sponding sweetness of the moral atmosphere. 
 He has seen the good and the evil that are in 
 the world, the ups and the downs, the almost 
 general desire of the men and the women therein 
 to do the right thing if they could but see how ; 
 and he has learned to be uncensorious, humane,
 
 76 £SSA V ON AN OLD S UBJECT. 
 
 — to attribute the best motives to every action, 
 and to be chary of imputing a sweeping and 
 cruel blame. He has a quiet smile for the vain- 
 glorious boast, a feeling of respect for shabby- 
 genteel virtues, a pity for the thread - bare 
 garments proudly worn, and for the napless hat 
 glazed into more than pristine brilliancy from 
 frequent brushing after rain. He would not be 
 satirical for the world. He has no finger of 
 scorn to point at anything under the sun. He 
 has a hearty " Amen " for ev^ery good wish, and 
 in the worst cases he leans to a verdict of Not 
 Proven. And along with this pleasant bland- 
 ness and charity, a certain grave, serious humour, 
 "a smile on the lip and a tear on the eye," 
 is noticeable frequently in middle-aged persons 
 — a phase of humour peculiar to that period of 
 life, as the chrysanthemum to December. Pity 
 lies at the bottom of it, just as pity lies, unsus- 
 pected, at the bottom of lov^e. Perhaps this 
 special quality of humour — with its sadness of 
 tenderness, its mirth with the heart-ache, its 
 gaiety growing out of deepest seriousness, like 
 a crocus on a child's grave — never approaches 
 more closely to perfection than in some passages 
 of Mr Hawthorne's writings, who was a middle-
 
 ESSA V ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 77 
 
 aged man from earliest boyhood. And although 
 middle-aged persons have lost the actual pos- 
 session of youth, yet in virtue of this humour 
 they can comprehend it, see all round it, enter 
 imaginatively into every sweet and bitter of it. 
 They wear the key Memory at their girdles, and 
 they can open every door in the chamber of 
 )'outh. And it is also in virtue of this peculiar 
 humour that — Mr Dickens's Little Nell to the 
 contrary — it is only middle-aged persons who 
 can, either as poets or artists, create for us a 
 child. There is no more beautiful thine on earth 
 than an old man's love for his granddaughter ; 
 more beautiful even — from the absence of all 
 suspicion of direct personal bias or interest — 
 than his love for his own daughter ; and it is 
 only the meditative, sad-hearted, middle-aged 
 man who can creep into the heart of a child and 
 interpret it, and show forth the new nature to us 
 in the subtle cross-lights of contrast and sug- 
 gestion. Imaginatively thus, the wrinkles of age 
 become the dimples of infancy. Wordsworth 
 was not a very young man when he held the 
 colloquy with the little maid who insisted, in her 
 childish logic, that she was one of seven. Mr 
 Hawthorne was not a young man when he
 
 78 £SSA V ON AN OLD SUBJECT. 
 
 painted " Pearl " by the side of the brook in the 
 forest ; and he was middle-aged and more when 
 he drew " Pansie," the most exquisite child that 
 lives in English words. And when speaking 
 of middle age, of its peculiar tranquillity and 
 humour, why not tell of its peculiar beauty as 
 well ? Men and women make their own beauty 
 or their own ugliness. Sir Edward Bulwer 
 Lytton speaks in one of his novels of a man 
 "who was uglier than he had any business to 
 be ;" and, if we could but read it, every human 
 being carries his life in his face, and is good- 
 looking or the reverse as that life has been good 
 or evil. On our features the fine chisels of 
 thought and emotion are eternally at work. 
 Beauty is not the monopoly of blooming young 
 men, and of white and pink maids. There is a 
 slow-growing beauty which only comes to per- 
 fection in old age. Grace belongs to no period 
 of life, and goodness improves the longer it 
 exists. I have seen sweeter smiles on a lip of 
 seventy than I ever saw on a lip of seventeen. 
 There is the beauty of youth, and there is also 
 the beauty of holiness — a beauty much more 
 seldom met, and more frequently found in the 
 arm-chair by the fire, with grandchildren around
 
 ESS A Y ON AN OLD S UBJECT. 79 
 
 its knee, than in the ball-room or the promenade. 
 Husband and wife, who have fought the world 
 side by side, who have made common stock of 
 joy and sorrow, and aged together, are not un- 
 frequently found curiously alike in personal 
 appearance, and in pitch and tone of voice — 
 just as twin pebbles on the beach, exposed to 
 the same tidal influences, are each other's alter 
 ego. He has gained a feminine something which 
 brines his manhood into full relief. SJic has 
 gained a masculine something which acts as a 
 foil to her womanhood. Beautiful are they in 
 life, these pale winter roses, and in death they 
 shall not be divided. When Death comes, he 
 will pluck not one, but both. 
 
 And in any case, to the old man, when the 
 world becomes trite, the triteness arises not so 
 much from a cessation as from a transference 
 of interest. What is taken from this world is 
 given to the next. The glory is in the east in 
 the morning, it is in the west in the afternoon, 
 and when it is dark the splendour is irradiating 
 the realm of the under- world. He would only 
 follow.
 
 ON DREAMS AND DREAMING. 
 
 »i,N dealing with the curious phenomenon 
 of Dreaming, the materiahsts and 
 spiritualists are, as usual, in extremes : 
 the one class regarding the phenomenon as 
 mainly the result of indigestion, the other as 
 one of the proofs of the immortality of the soul. 
 In this matter it may be prudent to steer a 
 middle course. One thing is certain, that what- 
 ever be the cause, the substance of a dream, 
 whether it be beautiful or ghastly, depends 
 entirely upon the dreamer. All men dream, just 
 as all men live ; but the dreams of men are as 
 different as are their lives. You require opium 
 and Coleridge combined before you arrive at 
 Kubla Khan : few men have extracted such 
 terrors from a pork chop as Fuseli. Every man 
 has his own fashion of dreaming, just as every 
 man has his own opinions, conceptions, and way 
 of looking at things. While asleep a man does 
 not in the least lose his personality. Dreams
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 8i 
 
 are the most curious asides and soliloquies of the 
 soul. When a man recollects his dream, it is 
 like meeting the ghost of himself Dreams 
 often surprise us into the strangest self-know- 
 ledge. If a man wishes to know his own secret 
 opinion of himself, he had better take cognizance 
 of his dreams. A coward is never brave in his 
 dream, the gross man is never pure, the untruth- 
 ful man lies and knows he is lying. Dreaming 
 is the truest confessional, and often the sharpest 
 penance. In sleep the will is quiescent, and 
 dreaming is like the talking in the ranks when 
 the men are standing at ease, and the eye of the 
 inspecting officer is absent for the nonce ; it is 
 like the chatting of the domestics round the 
 kitchen-fire of the castle after the lord and the 
 lady have retired — incoherent babblement for 
 the most part ; but the men in the ranks say 
 things that the commanding officer might ponder 
 on occasion, and the gossiping servants in the 
 comfortable firelight downstairs, commenting on 
 the events of the day, give their opinions on this 
 thing and the other which has happened, and 
 criticise not unfrcquently the conduct of the 
 master and mistress. You feel your pulse when 
 you wish to arrive at the secret of your bodily
 
 82 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 
 
 health; pay attention to your dreams if you wish 
 to arrive at the secret of your health, morally 
 and spiritually. 
 
 All men dream, and the most common ex- 
 perience of the phenomenon is the sort of double 
 existence which it entails. The life of the night 
 is usually very different from the life of the day. 
 And these strange spectres and shapes of slum- 
 ber do not perish ; they live in some obscure 
 ante-room or limbo of memory, and reappear at 
 times in the most singular fashion. Most people 
 hav^e been startled by this reappearance. Some- 
 thing of importance to you has happened quite 
 new, quite unexpected ; you are sitting in a 
 strange railway-station waiting for the train ; 
 you have gone to see a friend in a distant part 
 of the country, and in your solitary evening stroll 
 you come on a pool of water, with three pollard 
 willows, such as you see in old engravings, 
 growing beside it, and above the willows an 
 orange sunset through which a string of rooks 
 are flying ; and all at once this new thing which 
 has happened wears the face of an old experience ; 
 the strange railway-station becomes familiar ; 
 and the pool, the willows, the sunset with the 
 undulating line of rooks, seem to have been wit-
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. %i 
 
 nessed not {or the first time. This curious feehng 
 is gone ahiiost as swiftly as it has come ; but 
 you are perplexed with the sense of a double 
 identity, with the emergence as of a former 
 existence. The feeling alluded to is so swift 
 and intangible that often you cannot arrest it ; 
 you cannot pin it down for inspection as you 
 would a butterfly on a card ; but when you ca7i, 
 you find that what has startled you with fami- 
 liarity is simply a vagrant dream — that from the 
 obscure limbo of the memory some occult law 
 of association has called a wandering wraith of 
 sleep, and that for a moment it has flitted be- 
 twixt you and the sunshine of consciousness, 
 dimming it as it flits. 
 
 One thing is worthy of remark, that in dream- 
 ing, in that reverie of the consciousness, men 
 are usually a good deal cleverer than when they 
 are awake. You may not be much of a Shake- 
 speare in your waking moments, but you attain 
 to something of his faculty when your head is on 
 the pillow. In dreams, whatever latent dramatic 
 power you may possess awakes, and is at work. 
 The dreamer brings far-separated people to- 
 gether, he arranges them in groups, he connects 
 them by the subtlest films of interest ; and the
 
 84 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 
 
 man who is in the habit of taking cognizance of 
 his dreams soon learns that the phantoms of 
 men and women whom he has once known, and 
 who rev'isit him in slumber, are more life-like 
 images — talking more consistently, and exhibit- 
 ing certain little characteristics and personal 
 traits which had never been to him the subject 
 of conscious thought — than those he is accus- 
 tomed to deal with during his waking hours. 
 And then the strange persons and events one 
 does dream about on occasions, — persons long 
 dead, localities known in childhood, and never 
 seen since ; events which happened to yourself or 
 to others, and which seem to have faded out of 
 remembrance as completely as the breath of 
 yesterday has faded from the face of the mirror. 
 But these things have not so faded. There is a 
 " Lost Office " in the memory, where all the 
 waifs and strays of experience are taken care of 
 Word and act ; the evil deed and the good one ; 
 the fair woman's face which was the starlight of 
 your boyhood ; the large white moon that rose 
 over the harvest-fields in the September in which 
 you were in love ; the thrush that sang out in 
 the garden betwixt light and dark of summer 
 dawn, when the pressure of a hand at parting
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 85 
 
 the night before kept you awake, — all these 
 things, which you suppose to have perished as 
 utterly as the clothes you wore thirty years ago, 
 have no more perished than you have yourself. 
 Memory deals with these things as a photo- 
 grapher deals with his negatives ; she does not 
 destroy them, she simply places them aside, for 
 future use, mayhap. If you are a dreamer, you 
 will know this. And in dreams the imagina- 
 tion does not always deal with experience ; it 
 frequently goes beyond that, and guesses at 
 matters of which it cannot have any positive 
 knowledge. There is no more common terror 
 in dreams than that of falling over a precipice ; 
 and most dreamers are aware that in so dream- 
 ing they have felt the air cold, as they cut 
 through it, in their swift rush earthwards. This, 
 of course, cannot be matter of experience, as 
 those who have been so precipitated are placed 
 conclusively out of court. But it is curious 
 that the dreamer should so feel ; that the swift 
 imagination should not only vividly realise the 
 descent itself, but an unimportant accessory 
 of the descent — the chilliness of the swiftly- 
 severed air — as well. And then the all-absorb- 
 ing fact of Death exercises an intolerable fas-
 
 86 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 
 
 cination over many a dreaming brain. A man 
 dreamed once that he, along with sixteen others, 
 had been captured on a field of battle, and that, 
 by a refinement of cruelty, they were to be shot 
 singly. It .so happened that the dreamer was 
 the seventeenth. The sixteenth man knelt, the 
 levelled muskets spat fire, crackled, and he fell 
 forward on his face. The dreamer was then 
 conscious of the most burning feeling of envy of 
 the dead man — he had died, he zvas dead ; he 
 who was but a few yards distant a second ago, 
 was now removed to an immeasurable distance ; 
 he had gained his rest. And when the dreamer's 
 turn came to kneel, and when the muskets of the 
 platoon converged upon him, he found himself 
 marvelling whether, between the time the bullets 
 struck and the loss of sensation, he could interject 
 the thought, " This is death." Of death this man 
 knew nothing ; but even in the dream of sleep 
 his imagination could not help playing curiously 
 with the idea, and attempting to realise it ; 
 and in his wakinfj moments he could not have 
 realised it so thoroughly. Altogether this 
 vividness of the imagination in dreams is some- 
 thing to which nothing exactly corresponds in 
 the waking state. A Scotch schoolboy dreams
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 87 
 
 that he is being chased by the Foul Fiend, and 
 as he flies along, he hears behind him a hard 
 and a soft sound alternately ; and this does not 
 surprise him, because he knows perfectly that 
 the hard sound is the clang of the cloven hoof 
 on the roadway. In thus unconsciously work- 
 ing- the tradition of the cloven hoof into the 
 body of his impression, the Scotch school- 
 boy has become a John Bunyan for the time 
 being, and is far beyond his normal state 
 of imaginative activity. If you are aroused 
 from sleep by hearing your own name called, 
 you start up in bed with an impression so vivid 
 that you fancy the sound is yet lingering in 
 your ears. I once heard a friend, and one not 
 specially fanciful usually, tell how he had been 
 one night tormented by the strangest vision. 
 He was asleep, and on a curtain of darkness 
 there hung before him a beautiful female face ; 
 and this face, as if keeping time with the 
 ticks of the watch under his pillow, the beat- 
 ing of his pulse, the systole and diastole of his 
 heart, was alternately beautiful — and a skull. 
 There, on the curtain of darkness, the apparition 
 throbbed in regular and dreadful change. And 
 this strange and regularly recurring antithesis of
 
 88 DREAMS AXD DREAMING. 
 
 beauty and horror, with the spiritual meaning and 
 siirnificance under it — for the lovehest face that 
 ever poet sang, or painter painted, or lover kissed, 
 is but a skull beclothed with flesh : we are all 
 naked under our clothes, we are all skeletons 
 under our flesh — was as much out of my prosaic 
 friend's usual way of thinking as crown, sceptre, 
 and robe of state are out of a day labourer's 
 way of life. He was a good deal astonished at 
 his dream, and I, with my perhaps super-subtle 
 interpretation of it, was a good deal astonished 
 that he should have had such a dream. But the 
 truth seems to be, that when the will is asleep 
 the imagination awakes and plays. The most 
 prosaic creature is a poet when he dreams. 
 Every dreamer is, for the time being, in posses- 
 sion of the lamp of Aladdin — the world is 
 ductile to be shaped as fancy wills. And this 
 vividness of impression in dream — the realisa- 
 tion of strange situations, the recalling of dead 
 persons — is not only singular, as showing the 
 potency of imagination, which, perhaps un- 
 suspectingly, we all possess — but out of the 
 chaos of dreams a man may now and again ex- 
 tract a curious self-knowledge. The dreamer's 
 belief in his dream is usually intense, and I
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 89 
 
 suppose the man who fancied himself the seven- 
 teenth man to be shot, and who saw the muskets 
 of the silent platoon converging upon him, felt 
 very much as the poor mutineer does, who, 
 seated on his coffin, sees the same thing of a 
 raw morning ; and from his dream he might 
 discover, to some extent, how nature has steeled 
 his nerves, how he might comport himself in 
 deadly crises. In dream, better often than in 
 waking moments, a man finds out, as has been 
 said, the private opinion he entertains of him- 
 self; and in dreams, too, when placed in circum- 
 stances outside of his actual experience, and 
 which, in all probability, will never be evolved 
 in actual experience, he becomes in some sense 
 his own inspecting officer, and reviews his own 
 qualities. Through dreaming, a man is dual — 
 he is actor and spectator : and in dreaming, he 
 is never a hypocrite ; the coward never by any 
 possibility can dream that he is brave, the liar 
 never that he is truthful ; the falsest man awake 
 is sincere when he dreams. 
 
 Looking into a dream is like looking into the 
 interior of a watch ; you see the processes at 
 work by which results are obtained. A man 
 thus becomes his own eavesdropper, he plays
 
 90 DREAJ/S AXD DREAMING. 
 
 the spy on himself. Hope and fear, and the 
 other passions, are all active, but then activity is 
 uncontrolled by the will, and in remembering 
 dreams one has the somewhat peculiar feeling 
 of being one's own spiritual anatomist. And 
 as the dreaming brain concerns itself mainly 
 with the ideas which stir the waking one, and as 
 dreams are ruled by no known logic, conform to 
 no recognisable laws of sequence, are stopped in 
 career by no pale or limit, it is not in the least 
 surprising that in remote unscientific periods 
 these wild guesses of the spirit and bodyings 
 forth of its secret wishes and expectations should 
 have been credited with prevision. Even people 
 in the present day, if any superstitious tincture 
 runs in the blood, or if they are endowed with 
 fineness of imaginative perception, find it hard 
 to shake off the old belief. For, come how it 
 may, dreams, in point of fact, often do read the 
 future. We do not know what subtle lines of 
 communication may radiate between spirit and 
 spirit. If, a century ago, a man had sent a 
 message from London to Edinburgh in ten 
 minutes, he would have been looked upon as the 
 blackest of magicians ; now such messages cost 
 only a couple of shillings, and are matters of
 
 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 91 
 
 daily commerce. That a man in London should 
 speak to a man in Edinburgh was just as 
 astonishing and incredible to all practical minds 
 a century ago, as that spirit should speak with 
 spirit is incredible to the same minds at the 
 present day. But the apparent prevision of 
 dreams falls, of course, to be explained on quite 
 other grounds than that of some supposed 
 spiritual telegraphy. The dreaming brain is 
 continually busying itself with the objects of 
 fear or desire, and that it should occasionally 
 make a lucky guess is not an unlikely circum- 
 stance. Suppose a man is a candidate for some 
 office or post which he covets, the chances are 
 that, while the bestowal of the post is yet in 
 abeyance, he will dream either that he has ob- 
 tained it, or that he has lost it ; and should his 
 dream jump with the ultimate result, he at once 
 concludes it to have been prophetic. Suppose 
 a man has a near relative at an Indian station, 
 that for a couple of mails, contrary to custom, 
 he has received no letter, and that he dreams a 
 ship is bearing on through a sea of moonlight 
 with the dead body of his friend on board (a 
 result, as regards the friend, certainly on the 
 cards, and a dream, as regards himself, not in
 
 92 DREAMS AND DREAMING. 
 
 the least improbable — on the contrary, most 
 likely and natural, should his interest in his 
 friend be great), and that it proves true that 
 the friend has died — it would be difficult to 
 convince the man that his dream had not 
 something of prophecy in it. If dreams are 
 not fulfilled, they are naturally forgotten ; if 
 fulfilled, they arc just as naturally remembered. 
 That dreams, working continually in the stuff 
 of daily hope and fear, giving palpable shape and 
 image to desire and dread, should sometimes be 
 found to forestall the future fact, is not in the 
 least a matter for wonder. Such coincidences 
 are as certain to occur, by the law of chances, 
 as that a penny, if tossed up a hundred times, 
 will come down heads a certain number of 
 times. What concerns the dreamers more are 
 the hopes and fears, the desires and aversions 
 with which the dreaming fancy works ; looking 
 into these he may gain some information con- 
 cerning himself not easily obtainable otherwise.
 
 MR CARLYLE AT EDINBURGH. 
 
 INCE the amendment of her constitu- 
 tion, seven or eight years ago, the 
 University of Edinburgh has Hstened 
 to some remarkable speeches — or at all events 
 to speeches by some remarkable men. Lord 
 Advocate Inglis's Act gave the University a Lord 
 Chancellor and a Lord Rector ; and whatever 
 duties might devolve on those high officials, that 
 of delivering an address to the members of the 
 University in the largest obtainable hall was 
 one that could not be put by. At the first 
 meeting of the General Council — a body con- 
 sisting almost entirely of University graduates, 
 and created by the Act referred to — Lord 
 Brougham was elected Chancellor ; and in due 
 time the old man, almost bowed down by the 
 weight of his gorgeous robe, appeared before the 
 University, and discoursed on things in general 
 for over a couple of hours. The speech was 
 attractive enough — to those at least who were
 
 94 ^1/^ CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 near his Lordship, and were able to hear it — but 
 the greater attraction lay in the speaker. The 
 speech was heard by few, the speaker was visible 
 to all. And positively, when he stood up before 
 the University, a certain sense of awfulness pos- 
 sessed one, when one thought of his immense 
 age and intellectual vitality. Lord Brougham 
 lives in the printed Histories of England ; and 
 here he was a contemporary. He rocked the 
 cradle of the Edinburgh Rcviroj. More than 
 thirty years ago Byron closed his career at 
 Missolonghi ; but Brougham cut the pages of the 
 new Hours of Idleness, and indited the famous 
 critique — famous not in itself, but in its issues — 
 which stung the author into a poet. He was 
 Canning's arch foe in the House of Commons. 
 He advocated the abolition of the slave trade. 
 He was in his prime when that old shameful 
 affair of Queen Caroline and her husband — what 
 ages seem to have passed over English society 
 since then ! — was in everybody's mouth. Before 
 many of the men who now listened to him were 
 born, he had climbed into a peerage, had filled 
 the highest offices of State — had culminated 
 officially and intellectually — and still there he 
 was, white and bent and shattered, yet with all
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 95 
 
 his ancient vivid apprehensiveness and intellec- 
 tual interests, and able to speak for a couple of 
 hours. That his reception should be enthusiastic 
 was, of all this, the most natural consequence. 
 It was remembered that last century he was a 
 scholar of the University ; that he went out of 
 the University into the world's battle, a sheet of 
 maiden silk ; and now, after more than fifty 
 years, and while not only England, but an entire 
 Europe had changed in the interim, he had 
 returned to the University, creased and frayed 
 and torn, but torn in honourable strife, and 
 heavy with the emblazonries of many victories. 
 He was a great speaker in a world which exists 
 to the present generation by hearsay and in the 
 printed page, and to hear him speak now was 
 like witnessing some superannuated "Victory" 
 — in the thickest of the fight at the Baltic and 
 the Nile — firing a salute, the old port-holes 
 flashing fire once more, the old cannon smoke 
 curling around the decks. Of the matter of the 
 speech itself not much need be said — not a 
 single sentence of it probably remains in the 
 memory of any one who heard it — but the sight 
 of the old white Chancellor, who had seen and 
 done so much, could not fail to impress itself
 
 96 MR CARLYLE AT EDINBURGH. 
 
 indelibly on the memory and imagination. Lord 
 Broueham was the elect of the General Council 
 of the University ; when their turn came 
 round to choose a Lord Rector, Mr Gladstone 
 secured the suffrages of the students ; and 
 before the University the present Chancellor of 
 the Exchequer has delivered two addresses, the 
 first some years ago, when he was installed, and 
 the second at the close of last autumn, when he 
 demitted office. 
 
 On both of these occasions the interest of the 
 University was great, but it was of a different 
 kind from that formerly manifested. Lord 
 Brougham had the prestige of memory, Mr 
 Gladstone the prestige of expectation. The 
 one had finished his career long ago, the other 
 was in the midst of his. Lord Brougham was 
 the winner of past Derbys, Mr Gladstone was 
 entered for the next, and the popular favourite. 
 Lord Brougham interested the University seniors, 
 Mr Gladstone the University juniors — the one 
 represented the past, the other was the embodi- 
 ment of the present. Critically speaking, Mr 
 Gladstone's addresses, if more polished and 
 graceful than Lord Brougham's, were not, on 
 the whole, of greater mental calibre. They were
 
 MR CARLYLE AT EDINB UR GH. c^-j 
 
 fluent, colourless, rhetorical, cxpatiatory — if one 
 may coin a word to express one's meaning in 
 the rough ; and being devoid of every tincture of 
 individuality, and glancing rapidly over the sur- 
 faces of things, they gave one no idea what 
 manner of man the speaker was, or what quality 
 of mind he possessed. The only thing which 
 Mr Gladstone made sufficiently evident was, 
 that he could speak eloquently on any subject 
 for any given number of hours. The balanced 
 periods, as they fell on the ear, seemed to have 
 a meaning ; the sentiments evoked applause 
 from the younger portions of the auditory, when 
 they were uttered ; but when read in the news- 
 papers next morning, and divorced from the 
 charm of voice, the whole thing seemed incre- 
 dibly flat and unprofitable. The truth is that, 
 before the University, Mr Gladstone did not 
 prove himself so much an orator, or a thinker, 
 as an elocutionist. And his elocution was really 
 something marvellous. His self-possession was 
 complete ; he stood beside the reading-desk in 
 an easy attitude ; his hands were not incum- 
 brances ; the Rectorial robe lent him dignity ; 
 the grave, severe, somewhat melancholy, almost 
 
 ascetic face, furrowed and lined " like the side of 
 
 G
 
 98 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 a hill where the torrent hath been ; " the finely- 
 moulded mouth, with its immense capacity of 
 scornful emphasis — of which perhaps Mr Disraeli 
 is sufficiently aware — were worth study ; and then 
 the voice — silvery as Belial's, — now resonant in 
 the higher passages, now solemn in the hortatory 
 ones — of which passages there was perhaps 
 a superabundance — who shall sing its praises ? 
 Mr Gladstone's voice is the finest to which I 
 have ever listened ; and during his valedic- 
 tory address of nearly three hours, no hoarse- 
 ness jarred the music of his tones, and his 
 closing sentence was as clear and bell-like in its 
 cadence as the first. One might suppose that, 
 as a general rule, to speak for three hours is a 
 more arduous task than to listen for the same 
 space of time ; yet when he sat down, Mr 
 Gladstone seemed much less fatigued than any 
 of his auditors. Mr Gladstone has the reputa- 
 tion of being the most accomplished speaker of 
 his time ; and if in these addresses before the 
 University he did not quite fulfil popular ex- 
 pectation, the reason was perhaps to be dis- 
 covered easily enough. His addresses were care- 
 fully composed beforehand, and if recited as only 
 Mr Gladstone could recite them, they were recita-
 
 MR CARL YLE AT EDINB UR GH. 99 
 
 tions all the same. On the occasions referred 
 to he was master of the situation just as a 
 preacher is on Sundays. There was no inter- 
 ruption to chafe, no opposition to excite, no heat 
 of debate to energise and spur the intellect to 
 an activity more than normal. Mr Gladstone, 
 speaking to the Metropolitan Scottish University 
 about the old Greek poets, and Mr Gladstone 
 on a grand field night in the Commons, carrying 
 fire and terror into the ranks of the Opposition, 
 are conceivably very different. There is the same 
 difference between rhetoric hot and rhetoric cold, 
 as between red-flowing lava and porous pumice- 
 stone. 
 
 Mr Gladstone demitted office, and then it 
 behoved the students of the University to cast 
 about for a worthy successor. Two candidates 
 were proposed, Mr Carlyle and Mr Disraeli ; 
 and on the election-day Mr Carlyle was returned 
 by a large and enthusiastic majority. This was 
 all very well ; but a doubt lingered in the minds 
 of many whether Mr Carlyle w^ould accept the 
 office, or, if accepting it, whether he would de- 
 liver an address — said address being the sole 
 apple which the Rectorial tree is capable of 
 bearing. The hare was indeed caught, but it
 
 100 MR CARL VLB A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 was doubtful somewhat whether the hare would 
 allow itself to be cooked after the approved 
 academical fashion. It was tolerably well known 
 that ]\rr Carlyle had emerged from his long spell 
 of work on Frederick, in a condition of health 
 the reverse of robust ; that he had once or twice 
 before declined similar honours from Scottish 
 Universities — from Glasgow some twelve or four- 
 teen years ago, and from Aberdeen some seven or 
 eight ; and that he was constitutionally opposed 
 to all varieties of popular display, more especially 
 those of the oratorical sort. But all suspense was 
 ended when it was officially announced that Mr 
 Carlyle had accepted the office of Lord Rector, 
 that he would conform to all its requirements, 
 and that the Rectorial address would be deli- 
 vered late in spring. And so, when the days 
 began to lengthen in these northern latitudes, 
 and crocuses to show their yellow and purple 
 heads, people began to talk about the visit of 
 the great Avriter, and to speculate on what 
 manner and fashion of speech the great writer 
 would deliver. 
 
 Edinburgh has no University Hall — Mr Glad- 
 stone, holding high office therein for six years, 
 and having the command of the purse strings
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. loi 
 
 of the nation during the entire period, might 
 have done something to remedy that defect' 
 many tliink — and accordingly, when speech-day 
 approached, the largest public room in the city 
 was chartered by the University authorities. 
 This public room — the Music Hall, in George 
 Street — will contain, under severe pressure, from 
 eighteen hundred to nineteen hundred persons; 
 and tickets to that extent were secured by the 
 students and members of the General Council. 
 Curious stories are told of the eagerness on every 
 side manifested to hear Mr Carlyle. Country 
 clergymen from beyond Aberdeen came to 
 Edinburgh for the sole purpose of hearing and 
 seeing. Gentlemen came down from London by 
 train the night before, and returned to London 
 by train the night after. Nay, it was even said 
 that an enthusiast, dwelling in the remote west 
 of Ireland, intimated to the officials who had 
 charge of the distribution, that if a ticket should 
 be reserved for him, he would gladly come the 
 whole way to Edinburgh. Let us hope a ticket 
 zvas reserved. On the day of the address, the 
 doors of the Music Hall were besieged long be- 
 fore the hour of opening had arrived ; and loiter- 
 ing about there on the outskirts of the crowd,
 
 102 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 one could not help glancing curiously down Pitt 
 Street, towards the "lang toun of Kirkcaldy," 
 dimly seen beyond the Forth ; for on the sands 
 there, in the early years of the century, Edward 
 Irving was accustomed to pace up and down 
 solitarily, and " as if the sands were his own," 
 people say, who remember, when they were 
 boys, seeing the tall, ardent, black-haired, swift- 
 gestured, squinting man, often enough. And to 
 Kirkcaldy too, as successor to Edward Irving in 
 the Grammar School, came young Carlyle from 
 Edinburgh College, wildly in love with German 
 and Mathematics ; and the school-room in which 
 these men taught, although incorporated in Pro- 
 vost Swan's manufactory, is yet kept sacred 
 and intact, and but little changed these fifty 
 years — an act of hero-worship for which the 
 present and other generations may be thankful. 
 It seemed to me that so glancing Fife-wards, 
 and thinking of that noble friendship — of the 
 David and Jonathan of so many years a-gone — 
 was the best preparation for the man I was to 
 see, and the speech I w'as to hear. David and 
 Jonathan ! Jonathan stumbled and fell on the 
 dark hills, not of Gilboa, but of Vanity ; and 
 David sang his funeral song : " But for him I
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 103 
 
 had never known what the communion of man 
 with man means. His was the freest, brother- 
 hest, bravest human soul mine ever came in 
 contact with. I call him, on the whole, the best 
 man I have ever, after trial enough, found in 
 this world, or now hope to find." 
 
 In a very few minutes after the doors were 
 opened, the large hall was filled in every part ; 
 and when up the central passage the Principal, 
 the Lord Rector, the Members of the Senate, 
 and other gentlemen advanced towards the 
 platform, the cheering was vociferous and 
 hearty. The Principal occupied the chair, of 
 course ; the Lord Rector on his right, the Lord 
 Provost on his left. When the platform gentle- 
 men had taken their seats, every eye was fixed 
 on the Rector. To all appearance, as he sat, 
 time and labour had dealt tenderly with him. 
 His face had. not yet lost the country bronze 
 which he brought up with him from Dumfries- 
 shire as a student, fifty-six years ago. His 
 long residence in London had not touched his 
 Annandale look, nor had it — as we soon learned 
 — touched his Annandale accent. His coun- 
 tenance was striking, homely, sincere, truthful — 
 the countenance of a man on whom "the burden
 
 104 ^^^R CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 of the unintelligible world " had weighed more 
 heavily than on most. His hair was yet almost 
 dark ; his moustache and short beard were iron- 
 grey. His eyes were wide, melancholy, sorrow- 
 ful ; and seemed as if they had been at times 
 a-weary of the sun. Altogether, in his aspect 
 there was something aboriginal, as of a piece 
 of unhewn granite, which had never been 
 polished to any approved pattern, whose natural 
 and original vitality had never been tampered 
 with. In a word, there seemed no passivity 
 about ]\Ir Carlyle ; he was the diamond, and 
 the world was his pane of glass ; he was a 
 graving tool, rather than a thing graven upon 
 — a man to set his mark on the world — a man 
 on whom the world could not set its mark. 
 And just as, glancing towards Fife a few 
 minutes before, one could not help thinking of 
 his early connection with Edward Irving, so 
 seeing him sit beside the venerable Principal of 
 the University, one could not help thinking of 
 his earliest connection with literature. Time 
 brings men into the most unexpected relation- 
 ships. When the Principal Avas plain Mr 
 Brewster, editor of the Edinburgh CydopcBdia, 
 little dreaming that he should ever be Knight
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 105 
 
 of Hanover, and head of the Northern Metro- 
 politan University, Mr Carlyle — just as little 
 dreaming that he should be the foremost man of 
 letters of his day, and Lord Rector of the same 
 University — was his contributor, writing for said 
 Cyclopcedia biographies of Voltaire, and other 
 notables. And so it came about that, after 
 years of separation and of honourable labour, 
 the old editor and contributor were brought 
 together again — in new relations. The pro- 
 ceedings began by the conferring of the degree 
 of LL.D, on Mr Erskine of Linlathen — an old 
 friend of ]\Ir Carlyle's — on Professors Huxley, 
 Tyndall, and Ramsay, and on Dr Rae, the 
 Arctic explorer. That done, amid a tempest of 
 cheering and hats enthusiastically waved, Mr 
 Carlyle, slipping off his Rectorial robe — which 
 must have been a very shirt of Nessus to him — 
 advanced to the table, and began to speak in 
 low, wavering, melancholy tones, which were in 
 accordance with the melancholy eyes, and in 
 the Annandale accent with which his play- 
 fellows must have been familiar long ago. So 
 self-centred was he, so impregnable to outward 
 influences, that all his years of Edinburgh 
 and London life could not impair, even in the
 
 io6 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 slightest degree, i/taf. The opening sentences 
 were lost in the applause, and when it subsided, 
 the low, plaintive, quavering voice was heard 
 going on : " Your enthusiasm towards me is very 
 beautiful in itself, however undeserved it may 
 be in regard to the object of it. It is a feeling 
 honourable to all men, and one well known to 
 myself when in a position analogous to your 
 own." And then came the Carlylean utterance, 
 with its far-reaching reminiscence and sigh over 
 old graves — Father's and Mother's, Edward 
 Irving's, John Stirling's, Charles Buller's, and 
 all the noble known in past time — and with its 
 flash of melancholy scorn : " There are now 
 fifty-six years gone, last November, since I first 
 entered your city, a boy of not quite fourteen — 
 fifty-six years ago — to attend classes here, and 
 gain knowledge of all kinds, I knew not what — 
 with feelings of wonder and awe-struck expecta- 
 tion ; and now, after a long, long course, this is 
 what we have come to." (Hereat certain block- 
 heads, with a sense of humour singular enough, 
 loudly cachinnated !) " There is something 
 touching and tragic, and yet at the same time 
 beautiful, to see the third generation, as it were, 
 of my dear old native land, rising up, and say-
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 107 
 
 ing : ' Well, you are not altogether an unworthy- 
 labourer in the vineyard. You have toiled 
 through a great variety of fortunes, and have 
 had many judges.'" And thereafter, without 
 aid of notes, or paper preparation of any kind, 
 in the same w-istful, earnest, hesitating voice, 
 and with many a touch of quaint humour by 
 the way, which came in upon his subject like 
 glimpses of pleasant sunshine, the old man 
 talked to his vast audience about the origin 
 and function of Universities, the Old Greeks 
 and Romans, Oliver Cromwell, John Knox, the 
 excellence of silence as compared w^ith speech, 
 the value of courage and truthfulness, and the 
 supreme importance of taking care of one's 
 health. " There is no kind of achievement you 
 could make in the world that is equal to perfect 
 health. What to it are nuggets and millions ? 
 The French financier said : ' Alas ! why is there 
 no sleep to be sold.'*' Sleep was not in the 
 market at any quotation." But what need of 
 quoting a speech which by this time has been 
 read by everybody .'' Appraise it as you please, 
 it was a thing per se. Just as, if you wish a 
 purple dye, you must fish up the Murex ; if you 
 wish ivory, you must go to the East ; so if you
 
 io8 MR CARL VLB AT EDINBURGH. 
 
 desire an address such as Edinburgh hstened 
 to the other day, you must go to Chelsea for it. 
 It may not be quite to your taste, but, in any 
 case, there is no other intellectual warehouse 
 in which that kind of article is kept in stock. 
 
 Criticism and comment, both provincial and 
 metropolitan, have been busy with the speech, 
 making the best and the worst of it ; but it will 
 long be memorable to those who were present 
 and listened. Beyond all other living men, Mr 
 Carlyle has coloured the thought of his time. 
 He is above all things original. Search where 
 you will, you will not find his duplicate. Just 
 as Wordsworth brought a new eye to nature, Mr 
 Carlyle has brought a new eye into the realms 
 of Biography and History. Helvcllyn and 
 Skiddaw, Grassmere and Fairfield, are seen now 
 by the tourist even, through the glamour of the 
 poet ; and Robespierre and Mirabeau, Cromwell 
 and Frederic, Luther and Knox, stand at pre- 
 sent, and may for a long time stand, in the 
 somewhat lurid torchlight of Mr Carlyle's genius. 
 Whatever the French Revolution may have been, 
 the French Revolution, as Mr Carlyle conceives 
 it, will be the French Revolution of posterity. 
 If he has been mistaken, it is not easy to see
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 109 
 
 from what quarter rectification is to come. It 
 will be difficult to take the " sea-green " out of 
 the countenance of the Incorruptible ; to silence 
 Danton's pealing voice or clip his shaggy mane ; 
 to dethrone King Mirabeau. If, with regard to 
 these men, Mr Carlyle has written wrongfully, 
 there is to be found no redress. Robespierre is 
 now, and henceforth in popular conception, a 
 prig ; Mirabeau is now and henceforth a hero. 
 Of these men, and many others, Mr Carlyle has 
 painted portraits, and whether true or false, his 
 portraits are taken as genuine. And this new 
 eye he has brought into ethics as well. A 
 mountain, a daisy, a sparrow's nest, a moorland 
 tarn, were very different objects to Wordsworth 
 from what they were to ordinary spectators ; 
 and the moral qualities of truth, valour, honesty, 
 industry, are quite other things to Mr Carlyle 
 than they arc to the ordinary run of mor- 
 tals — not to speak of preachers and critical 
 writers. The gospel of noble manhood which 
 he so passionately preaches is not in the least a 
 novel one ; the main points of it are to be found 
 in the oldest books which the world possesses, 
 and have been so constantly in the mouths of 
 men that for several centuries past they have
 
 1 10 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 
 
 been regarded as truisms. That " work is wor- 
 ship ; " that the first duty of a man is to find out 
 what he can do best, and when found, " to keep 
 pegging away at it," as old Lincohi phrased it; 
 that on a he nothing can be built ; that this 
 world has been created by Almighty God ; that 
 man has a soul which cannot be satisfied with 
 meats or drinks, or fine palaces and millions of 
 money, or stars and ribands — are not these 
 the mustiest of commonplaces, of the utterance 
 of which our very grandmothers might be 
 ashamed ? It is true they are most common- 
 place — to the commonplace ; that they have 
 formed the staple of droning sermons which 
 have set the congregation asleep ; but just as 
 Wordsworth saw more in a mountain than any 
 other man, so in these ancient saws Mr Carlyle 
 discovered what no other man in his time has. 
 And then, in combination with this piercing 
 insight, he has, above all things, emphasis. He 
 speaks as one having authority — the authority 
 of a man who has seen with his own eyes, who 
 has gone to the bottom of things and knows. 
 For thirty years this gospel he has preached, 
 scornfully sometimes, fiercely sometimes, to the 
 great scandal of decorous persons not unfre-
 
 MR CARL YLE A T EDINBURGH. 1 1 1 
 
 quently ; but he has always preached it sincerely 
 and effectively. All this Mr Carlyle has done ; 
 and there was not a single individual, perhaps, 
 in his large audience at Edinburgh the other 
 day, who was not indebted to him for something 
 — on whom he had not exerted some spiritual 
 influence more or less. Hardly one, perhaps — 
 and there were many to whom he has been a 
 sort of Moses leading them across the desert to 
 what land of promise may be in store for them ; 
 some to whom he has been a many-counselled, 
 wisely-experienced elder brother ; a few to whom 
 he has been monitor and friend. The gratitude 
 I owe to him is, or should be, equal to that of 
 most. He has been to me only a voice, some- 
 times sad, sometimes wrathful, sometimes scorn- 
 ful ; but when I saw him for the first time with 
 the eye of flesh stand up amongst us the other 
 day, and heard him speak kindly, brotherly, 
 affectionate words — his first appearance of that 
 kind, I suppose, since he discoursed of Heroes 
 and Hero Worship to the London people — I am 
 not ashamed to confess that I felt moved towards 
 him, as I do not think, in any possible combina- 
 tion of circumstances, I could have felt moved 
 towards any other living man.
 
 \V INTER. 
 
 R»^a;0 town and countr}- Winter comes alike. 
 
 s ^ii but to each he comes in different fashion. 
 ^^^ - To the \-illager, he stretches a bold 
 frosty hand ; to tlie towTisman. a clammy one. 
 To the villager, he comes wrapt in cold clear air ; 
 to the townsman, in yellow fogs, through which 
 the gas-lamps blear at noon. To the villager, 
 he brines snow on the bare trees, frosty spangles 
 on the roadways, exquisite silver chasings and 
 adornments to the i\-ies on the walls, tumults of 
 voices and noises of skating-irons, smouldering 
 oranee sunsets that distain the snows, make 
 brazen the window panes, and fire even the 
 icicles at the cottage eaves. To the to^\-nsman, 
 he brines influenzas, secret slides on unlighted 
 pavements, showers of snowballs from irreverent 
 urchins, damp feet, avalanches from the roofs of 
 houses six storeys high, cab fares wofully be- 
 erudeed. universal slush. Winter is like a Red 
 Indian, noble in his forests and solitudes, de-
 
 WINTER. 113 
 
 teriorated by cities and civilisation. The signs of 
 his approach are different in the town and in the 
 village. To a certain northern city, whose spires 
 fret my sky-line of a morning, his proximity is 
 made known by the departure of the last tourist 
 and the arrival of the first student ; by brown 
 papers taken from windows in fashionable streets 
 and squares ; by the reassembling of schools 
 and academies ; and by advertisements in the 
 newspapers relative to the opening of the Uni- 
 versity. By these signs, rather than by the 
 cawing of uneasy rooks, or the whirling away of 
 the last red leaf, the inhabitants know that the 
 stern season is at hand ; a salvo of inaugural 
 addresses announces that he is in their midst, 
 and the reappearance of la\\yers in the long- 
 deserted halls of the Parliament House, is re- 
 garded as a prophecy of snow. In that famous 
 northern city, winter is disagreeable, as in other 
 cities. La\\yers, doctors, and professors tumble 
 out of bed, and shave by gas-light. The entire 
 population catches cold, and the clergymen are 
 coughed down on Sundays. The falling snow 
 covers the pavements — except the spaces in front 
 of the bakers' shops, which are wet, and black, 
 
 and steaming ; in due time it makes dumb the 
 
 H
 
 114 WINTER. 
 
 streets, muffling every sound of wheel and hoof; 
 it slips its moorings, and hangs in icicles and 
 avalanches from the roofs of houses, but it does 
 not appear in any perfection ; it has lost all 
 purity, and is dingy as a city sparrow. It is 
 regarded as a nuisance ; shopkeepers scrape it 
 from their doors, deft scavengers build it in 
 mounds along the streets ; in a couple of days 
 thaw sets in, and from roof, and eave, and 
 cornice, from window-sill, gargoyle, and spout, 
 there is a universal sound of weeping, like that 
 which was heard in the old Norse world, when 
 gods and men lamented the death of Balder 
 the Beautiful. On frosty mornings, cab-horses, 
 whose shoes are never sharpened in prepara- 
 tion, although the previous night every star was 
 sparkling like steel, are tumbling on the hilly 
 streets, and the fare gesticulates from the win- 
 dow, and one man holds down the head of the 
 terrified animal, whose breath is like a wreath of 
 incense, and the driver, clothed in a drab great- 
 coat, with a comforter up to his nose, is busy 
 with the girths, and small boys gather round, 
 and attempt to blow some warmth into their 
 benumbed fingers. Up from the sea comes a 
 wicked harr, shedding disastrous twilight; church
 
 WINTER. 115 
 
 spires are visible half way up and disappear ; the 
 lights in shops are yellow smears on the dark- 
 ness ; at crossings, vehicles burst on you in a 
 moment, and in another moment arc swallowed 
 up ; and on the obscure pavement all ties of 
 relationship and acquaintanceship are dissolved. 
 Men are strangers for the time being ; without 
 a sinking of the heart, debtor brushes clothes 
 with creditor; and with never a thrill Romeo 
 steps off the pavement to let Juliet pass, quite 
 unconscious that his divinity is near. Even on 
 the more favourable days there is little to please 
 one in a wintry city ; over head the smoke 
 hangs heavily and lazily ; for an hour or so a 
 small uninteresting sun is stuck on the murky 
 sky, like a red wafer on a dirty letter, and the 
 setting is accomplished as rapidly as possible, 
 and without any attempt at pomp. The south- 
 west will not even turn out a corporal's guard 
 to present arms to such a visitor. The towns- 
 man does not care for Winter, although he 
 may care for what Winter brings — the long 
 lighted evenings in which he can read or work, 
 the lectures, the dinner-parties, the concerts, the 
 theatres, and, if very young, the sprig of mistletoe 
 stuck under the chandelier of a Christmas night.
 
 ii6 WINTER. 
 
 But in ' this quiet place — distant but a few 
 miles from the city of which I have been speak- 
 ing — Winter is as pleasant as summer in her 
 prime. To this village, Winter sends other 
 avant couriers than the taking down of brown 
 paper from the windows of great houses, or the 
 advertisement of college sessions. The rooks 
 gathering in the coloured woods was one sign ; 
 the ploughing of the wheat-fields was another. 
 The reddening of the beech hedges told me 
 Winter was on his way. The Robin hopping 
 along the shrubbery walks in his search for 
 crumbs — remembering well they were scattered 
 there last year — told me he was at hand. The 
 rime of a morning on the old walls outside told 
 me he was already come. One could feel the im- 
 palpable presence in the crisp air, in the clear blue 
 distance with the Castle and city spires etched 
 upon it, in the stillness broken only by the rustle 
 of a withered leaf, in the bright yet sobered sun- 
 light, in the quickened current of the blood 
 as one walked. Sated whilom with foliage, in 
 my rambles my eye delights in naked branches, 
 and I please myself with noting how many 
 objects become visible at this season which 
 summer had kept secret ; ragged nests high up
 
 WINTER. 117 
 
 in trees, houses and farm-buildings standing 
 amongst woods, bridges, and fences, and the 
 devious courses of streams. These things are 
 lost and buried in the Icafiness of summer, and 
 are only to be recognised now, as truths are dis- 
 cerned in age which youth never guesses of. 
 When I return, the sunset is burning away 
 behind the stripes of ancient pines that stand on 
 the scarped bank above the stream, making 
 their bronzed trunks yet more red — yet more 
 dark their undecaying verdure. And by the 
 last gleam on the distant hills, I notice that 
 their crests are hoary. Snow, then, has already 
 come, and will be with us anon. 
 
 Winter in the country, without snow, is like 
 a summer without the rose. Snow is Winter's 
 specialty, its crowning glory, its last exquisite 
 grace. Snow comes naturally in Winter, as 
 foliage comes in summer ; but although one 
 may have been familiar with it during forty 
 seasons, it always takes one with a certain 
 pleased surprise and sense of strangeness. In 
 each Winter the falling of the first snow-flake is 
 an event ; it lays hold of the imagination. A 
 child does not ordinarily take notice of the 
 coming of leaves and flowers, but it will sit at
 
 ii8 WINTER. 
 
 a window for an hour, watching the descent of 
 the dazzHng apparition, w'ith odd thoughts and 
 fancies in the Httle brain. Snow attracts the 
 child as the pkimage of some rare and foreign 
 bird would. The most prosaic of mortals, when 
 he comes down stairs of a morning, and finds 
 a new soft, white world, instead of the hard 
 familiar black one, is conscious of some obscure 
 feeling of pleasure, the springs of which he might 
 find it difficult to explain. I do not care much 
 for snow in town ; but in the country it is ever 
 a marvel : it wipes out all boundary lines and 
 distinctions between fields ; it clothes the skele- 
 tons of trees with a pure wonder ; through the 
 strangely transfigured landscape the streams run 
 black as ink and without a sound ; and over 
 all, the cold blue frosty heaven smiles as if in 
 very pleasure at its work. On such a day, how 
 windless and composed the atmosphere, how 
 bright the fro.sty sunlight, from what a distance 
 comes a shout or the rusty caw of a rook ! 
 " Earth hath not anything to show more fair." 
 And somehow the season seems to infuse a spirit 
 of jollity into everything. As I walk about 
 I fancy the men I meet look ruddier and 
 healthier; that they talk in louder and cheerier
 
 WINTER. 119 
 
 tones ; that their chests heave with a sincerer 
 laughter. They are more charitable, I know. 
 Winter binds " earth-born companions and fel- 
 low-mortals " together, from man to red-breast ; 
 and interior domestic life takes a new charm 
 from the strange pallor outside. The good crea- 
 ture Fire feels exhilarated, and licks with its 
 pliant tongue, as if pleased and flattered. Sofa 
 and slippers become luxuries. The tea-urn 
 purrs like a fondled cat. In those long warm- 
 lighted evenings, books communicate more of 
 their inmost souls than they do in summer ; and 
 a moment's glance at the village church-roof, 
 sparkling to the frosty moon, adds warmth to 
 fleecy blankets, and a depth to repose. 
 
 The white flakes are coming at last ! Stretch 
 out your hand — the meteor falls into it lighter 
 than a rose-leaf, and is in a moment a tear. 
 It is as fragile as beautiful. How innocent 
 in appearance the new-fallen snow, the sur- 
 face of which a descending leaf would dimple 
 almost ! and yet there is nothing fiercer, dead- 
 lier, crueller, more treacherous. On wild uplands 
 and moors it covers roads and landmarks, and 
 makes the wanderer travel hopeless miles till he 
 sinks down exhausted ; it steeps his senses in a
 
 120 WINTER. 
 
 pleasing stupor, till he fancies he sees the light 
 of his far-off dwelling, and hears the voices of 
 his children, who will be orphans before the 
 morn ; it smites him on the mouth and face as 
 he dies, and then covers him up, softly as with 
 kisses, tenderly as with eider-down, like a sleek- 
 white murderer as it is. In alliance with the 
 demon of wind, it will drift and spin along the 
 mountain-sides, and in a couple of hours a hun- 
 dred sheep and their shepherd are smothered 
 in a corry on Ben Nevis. Welded by frost 
 into an avalanche, it slides from its dizzy hold, 
 and falls on an Alpine village, crushing it to 
 powder. A snowflake is weak in itself, but 
 in multitudes it is omnipotent. These terrible 
 crystals have stayed the marches of conquerors 
 and broken the strength of empires. The in- 
 numerous flakes flying forth on the Russian 
 wind are deadlier than bullets ; they bite more 
 bitterly than Cossack lances. In front, behind, 
 on every side, for leagues and leagues they fall 
 in the dim twilight, flinging themselves in front 
 of the weary soldier's foot, clogging the wheels of 
 cannon, making the banner an icy sheet, stilling 
 the drum that beat the charge. O, weary sol- 
 diers of the Empire, eyes that saw the sun of
 
 WINTER. 121 
 
 Austerlitz, hearts that love Napoleon — to this 
 i^rim battle with Winter, Lodi and Areola were 
 holiday parades ! The Loire will murmur from 
 antique town to town, through pleasant summer 
 lands of France, till it rests in the Spanish sea ; 
 vines stretched from pole to pole will glow in 
 setting suns ; girls will dance at village festivals ; 
 but for you, never more the murmuring river, 
 nor the ripening grape, nor the dancing girl's 
 waist and smile. For you the deadly snow-kisses, 
 the sleep and the dreams that bring death, 
 the dreadful embalming of frosts, potent as 
 the spices that preserve Pharaoh. 
 
 At home. Winter is a terrible despot ; but Hke 
 the wild Goths which he nurtured, he becomes 
 more civilised as he travels South. Like a tra- 
 velled man of the world, he adapts himself to the 
 countries in which he sojourns. The ice, which 
 is misery at Labrador, is luxury at Naples, In 
 our country we know Winter chiefly in his mild 
 and fanciful moods. In England he is artist and 
 adorner. He brightens the bloom on the cheeks 
 of girls ; he breathes the quaintest forests on our 
 bedroom windows ; he beards cottage eaves with 
 icicles ; he makes the lake a floor on which the 
 skater may disport himself; he fires the south-
 
 122 WINTER. 
 
 west with sober sunsets ; he gives star and 
 planet a metallic lustre. But with all these 
 pleasant qualities and obliging graces, he wears 
 here, as at home, the old heart. Have you not 
 seen him in our own streets pinch cruelly a poor 
 child scantily clad ? Do we not know how he 
 maltreats the desolate widow and the unem- 
 ployed artisan ? Do we not hear of him in savage 
 mood killing outright poor homeless wretches 
 whom he has discovered asleep on stairs or in 
 deserted cellars .-• Here, as I have said, he is 
 partially civilised, but at home he is a despot ; 
 there he piles the iceberg that sails southward 
 to crush ships ; there he pinches the starved 
 wolf; there he makes the Esquimaux shiver 
 through all his furs. And the Arctic voyagers 
 whom he takes prisoner and locks up in his 
 immeasurable dungeons of snow and ice, they 
 know what a Giant Despair he is ; and friends 
 at home who wait and wait, and to whom no 
 news ever comes, know it too. 
 
 There is one more good thing about Winter — 
 he brings Christmas. Through the bleak Decem- 
 ber the thought of the coming festival is pleasant 
 — like the reflection of a fire on our faces. We 
 taste the cake before it is baked, and when it is ac-
 
 WINTER. 123 
 
 tually before us we find that it is none the worse 
 for the fond handhng of imagination. Christmas- 
 day is the plcasantest day in the whole year. 
 On that day we think tenderly of distant friends ; 
 we strive to forgive injuries — to close accounts 
 with ourselves and the world — to begin the new 
 year with a white leaf, and a trust that the 
 chapter of life about to be written will contain 
 more notable entries, a fairer sprinkling of good 
 actions, fewer erasures made in blushes, and fewer 
 ugly blots than some of the earlier ones. And to 
 make Christmas perfect, the ground should be 
 covered and the trees draped with snow ; the 
 bleak .world- outside should make us enjoy all 
 the more keenly the comforts we possess ; and, 
 above all, it should make us remember the poor 
 and the needy ; for a charitable deed is the best 
 close of any chapter of our lives, and the best 
 promise, too, for the record about to be begun. 
 
 We are accustomed to consider Winter the 
 grave of the year, but it is not so in reality. 
 In the stripped trees, the mute birds, the dis- 
 consolate gardens, the frosty ground, there is 
 only an apparent cessation of Nature's activi- 
 ties. Winter is a pause in music, but during 
 the pause the musicians are privately tuning
 
 124 WINTER. 
 
 their strings, to prepare for the coming out- 
 burst. When the curtain falls on one piece at 
 the theatre, the people are busy behind the 
 scenes making arrangements for that which is to 
 follow. Winter is such a pause, such a fall of the 
 curtain. Under ground, beneath snow and frost, 
 next spring and summer are secretly getting 
 ready. The roses which young ladies will gather 
 six months hence for hair or bosom, are already 
 in hand. In Nature there is no such thing as 
 paralysis. Each thing flows into the other, as 
 movement into movement in graceful dances ; 
 Nature's colours blend in imperceptible grada- 
 tion ; all her notes are sequacious. I goout to 
 my garden and notice that when the last leaves 
 have fallen off my lilac and currant-bushes, like 
 performers at the side-wings waiting their turn to 
 come on, the new buds are all ready. To-day I 
 beheld great knobs of buds on a horse-chestnut 
 of mine, liquored over with an oily exudation 
 which glittered in the sunlight. In my plants, 
 the life which in June and July was exuberant 
 in blossom and odour, has withdrawn to the 
 root, where it lies perdue, taking counsel with 
 itself regarding the course of action to be 
 adopted next season. The spring of 1S64 is
 
 WINTER. 125 
 
 even now under-ground, and the first snows will 
 hardly have melted till it will peep out timor- 
 ously in snowdrops ; then, bolder grown, will 
 burst in crocuses, holding up their coloured 
 lamps ; then, by fine gradations, the floral year 
 will reach its noon, the rose ; then, by fine gra- 
 dations, it will die in a sunset of hollyhocks and 
 tiger-lilies ; and so we come again to withered 
 leaves and falling snows.
 
 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 N every literary work there are two 
 elements : there is the thought, or the 
 thing to be said ; there is the expres- 
 sion, or the manner of saying the thing. This 
 latter element, especially when it takes any 
 characteristic shape, we are accustomed to de- 
 nominate style. And in every work of art 
 the style is even of more importance than the 
 thought : it is the artistic part, it is that through 
 which the artist's personality becomes visible. 
 The main body of the poem, or the novel, or the 
 essay, consists necessarily of ideas which the 
 writer did not originate, which he found ready- 
 made to his hand, which have, in one shape 
 or another, been used before ; and his merit 
 consists in the new forms into which he is able 
 to work up the old material. He calls in the 
 worn coin of thought, melts it down in secret 
 crucibles, and re-issues it, bearing a fresh super- 
 scription and a new value. Thought is mine.
 
 LITERARY WORK. 127 
 
 your's, everybody's ; but the artist lays hold of 
 our thoughts, and works with them, as a sculptor 
 works with his clays. The world does not need 
 new thoughts so much as it needs that old 
 thoughts be re-cast. The artist is not required 
 to create his own materials. If a man makes 
 bricks, he is provided with clay ; if a man paints 
 a portrait, he is allowed sitter, canvas, and pig- 
 ments. To make a fine modern statue, there is 
 a erreat melting down of old bronze. Absolute 
 novelty of idea — in a poem, for instance — is felt by 
 many as a disturbance, because it is devoid of the 
 sweetness of acquaintanceship and association. 
 Absolute novelty, even if it could be procured, 
 the reader does not very much care about : what 
 delights him is the setting of a familiar thought 
 in a new light, the discovery of subtle links 
 and relationships between things with which 
 he is acquainted, but which he was in the 
 habit of considering disconnected and remote. 
 Approach from a new point a mountain with 
 which you are familiar, and it has all the charm 
 of strangeness ; and this delight of strangeness 
 is felt all the more keenly from its unexpected- 
 ness, and from the mixture in it of the present 
 and the past. The pleasure lives in the mingling
 
 128 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 of the old recognition and the new surprise. I 
 live — I love — I am happy — I am wretched — I 
 was once young — I must die, are extremely 
 simple and commonplace ideas, which no one 
 can claim as exclusive property ; yet out of these 
 has flowed all the poetry the world knows, and 
 all that it ever will know. The " still sad music 
 of humanity" is simple enough, and may be 
 apprehended by any peasant ; all that poets 
 have to do is to execute variations upon it, to 
 unwind its subtle sweetnesses, to pursue and 
 carry out its suggestions ; and the important 
 matter is, with what amount of skill these varia- 
 tions, unwindings, and pursuings have been 
 accomplished. The thought is only a part of 
 the poem or the essay, and the commonest part. 
 What in a work of art is really valuable is the 
 art. The statue that is only worth the weight 
 of its metal is a very poor statue indeed. Take 
 an English classic — " The Castle of Indolence," 
 or " The Vicar of Wakefield," for instance : strip 
 it of music, colour, epigram, wit, analyse the 
 residuum of naked ideas, and you will find 
 nothing very important nor yet very original. 
 The ideas which make up these works have 
 been gathered from far and near, and were as
 
 LITERARY WORK. 129 
 
 much the property of a hundred contemporary- 
 persons, as they were the property of Goldsmith 
 and Thomson. " Paradise Lost" proves nothing 
 except that Milton was one of the greatest poets 
 the world ever saw. And all this does not in 
 the least detract from the merit of the poet or 
 the novelist. The matter does not so much lie 
 in the idea, as in the use made of the idea. 
 Music sleeps in the strings of the harp, no doubt, 
 but the skilful harper's hand has to come before 
 it can be awakened. The architect is nothing 
 without the services of the quarryman, brick- 
 layer, and plasterer ; the general is nothing 
 unless the recruiting-serjeant be preliminary. 
 Yet we admire the great musician more than 
 the artificer who built the instrument. We do 
 not place Sir Christopher Wren and a hodman 
 on the same level ; the recruiting-serjeant is 
 gathered quietly to his fathers, and forgotten, 
 while Wellington's war-horse snorts in bronze 
 in every one of the British cities, and his fame 
 fills an era in our history, as the sound of the 
 billow Fingal's cave in Stafta. 
 
 A literary work of art is neither a mathe- 
 matical demonstration, nor a " Pinnock's Guide 
 to Knowledge," nor an argument It is not
 
 I30 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 designed to prove anything, nor yet to dis- 
 seminate information useless or useful. If 
 harshly questioned, it frequently can give no 
 very satisfactory reason for its existence. It 
 is something above and beyond mere use, like 
 the colour and breath of a flower, or the burn- 
 ing breast of a humming-bird. Incidentally, it 
 may subserve purposes tangible enough, but its 
 primary office is to please; at all events, if it fail 
 in that, it fails in everything. If it cannot delight, 
 its existence is an impertinence for which no apo- 
 logy can be accepted, and the world gives it the 
 cold shoulder. And here it is that the su- 
 preme importance of style becomes visible. We 
 see at once the superlative value of concise- 
 ness, neat or cunning turns of sentence, colour, 
 cadence, the glitter of fancy and epigram ; we 
 see at once what room there is for the play of 
 all the weapons of rhetoric, — only in the using of 
 the weapons we must take lessons from Nature, 
 and not from the rhetorician. For the lunge 
 that rids you of your adversary is the inspira- 
 tion of the moment, never the remembered 
 lesson of the fencing-master. In literature, 
 the how a thing is said is of as much import- 
 ance as the thing itself. Thought, if left to
 
 LITERARY WORK. 131 
 
 itself, will dissolve and die. Style preserves 
 it as balsams preserve Pharaoh. Fine phrases 
 are, after all, the most valuable things. Epi- 
 grams are our most unquestionable antiques. 
 Out of the iUhris of the early world we have 
 raked a few poetical images, and they are as 
 fresh now as on the day on which they were 
 first uttered. The enamel of style is the only 
 thing that can defy the work of time. In virtue 
 of his style. Homer lives, just as Addison and 
 Jeremy Taylor live in virtue of theirs. 
 
 To define the charm of style is as difficult 
 as to define the charm of beauty or of fine 
 manners. It is not one thing, it is the result of 
 a hundred things. Everything a man has is 
 concerned in it. It is the amalgam and issue of 
 all his faculties, and it bears the same relation 
 to these that light bears to the sun, or the per- 
 fume to the flower. And apart from its value 
 as an embalmer and preserver of thought, it 
 has this other value, that it is a secret window 
 through which we can look in on the writer. A 
 man may work with ideas which he has not 
 originated, which do not in any special way 
 belong to himself; but his style — in which is 
 included his way of approaching a subject, and
 
 132 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 his method of treating it — is always personal 
 and characteristic. We decipher a man by his 
 style, find out secrets about him, as if we over- 
 heard his soliloquies, and had the run of his 
 diaries, just as in conversation, and in the 
 ordinary business of life, we draw our impres- 
 sions, not so much from what a man says, as 
 from the manner and the tone of voice in 
 which the thing is said. The cunning reader 
 draws conclusions from emphasis, takes note of 
 the half-perceptible sneer, makes humour stand 
 and deliver its secret, and estimates what bitter- 
 ness it has taken to congeal into sharpness the 
 icy spear of wit. After this fashion, in every 
 book the writer's biography may more or less 
 clearly be read. For a man needs not to speak 
 directly about himself to be personally communi- 
 cative. And, in truth, it is in the amount of 
 this kind of personal revelation that the final 
 value of a book resides. We read books, not 
 so much for what they say as for what they 
 suggest. A great writer's characters are not 
 nearly so interesting as the great writer him- 
 self, and we take to them on account of their 
 paternity, as we take to the children of our 
 friends. There are books we read over and
 
 LITERARY WORK. 133 
 
 over again, and all the while we are striving to 
 catch a glimpse of the author between the lines. 
 The characters of the great writer take us back 
 constantly to the great writer, as the sunbeam 
 constantly takes us back to the sun. And by 
 this relationship to something greater than 
 themselves they are dignified, as an ambassador, 
 in whatever country he may be placed, wears 
 the dignity of the sovereign of whom for the 
 time being he is the representative. If you 
 desire information respecting the sovereign, it 
 is to the ambassador you must apply. Don 
 Quixote is not so great as Cervantes ; Hamlet 
 is not so great as Shakespeare ; Satan is not so 
 great as Milton ; but through the characters we 
 have named we learn more about the writers 
 than we do from their professed biographies. 
 Biography frequently can show us little more 
 than the table a man sat at, the bed he slept on. 
 In mere biographical value and pertinence, 
 Lockhart's " Life of Burns " is not comparable 
 for a moment with the poems of Burns ; and 
 what makes Mr Carlyle's essay on that poet 
 stand almost alone in our literature as a master- 
 piece of full and correct delineation, is the way 
 in which he makes this line or the other a
 
 134 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 transparent window of insight, through which 
 he obtains the closest gHmpses of his subject. 
 It is only the books which contain this un- 
 conscious personal reference — and this comes 
 out, not so much in what is said, as in the 
 manner of saying it — that are worth much, or 
 that can permanently interest. 
 
 Take up an essay of Montaigne's; you are 
 startled by no remarkable breadth or weight of 
 idea, but you are constantly encountering sen- 
 tences through which you can look in on the 
 author as through a stereoscopic lens. You 
 take up an essay of Charles Lamb's, and in the 
 quaint setting of his thoughts — like a piquant 
 face in a Quaker bonnet — you are continually 
 renewing and improving your acquaintance with 
 the shiest, most delicate, and, in some respects, 
 the noblest and purest of modern spirits. People 
 never weary of reading Montaigne and Lamb, for 
 while the thoughts they express have sufficient 
 merit as thoughts, they are at the same time 
 biographies in brief. They may have written 
 finely or foolishly, seriously or with levity, but 
 they have always written with a certain personal 
 flavour. Take up, on the other hand, one or 
 other of the novels which have recently acquired
 
 LITERARY WORK. 135 
 
 a prodigious popularity, and while you find the 
 central secret hidden away in the cunningest 
 manner under fold on fold of incident, you find 
 nothing else in the \east worthy of regard, and 
 a single perusal disposes of all the interest which 
 can arise from the unravelling of the plot These 
 — in their own way extremely clever and excit- 
 ing works — possess no reflection, no landscape, 
 no commentary on what is going on, and they 
 are entirely innocent of the personal revelation 
 of which we have been speaking. The characters 
 themselves are the merest films and shadows, 
 and the books in which we make their acquaint- 
 ance seem written by people who have never 
 been in love, who have never stood by a friend's 
 death-bed, who have never seen the sun rise or 
 set — who have no biography, in short. Rising 
 from them, you have been enabled to form no 
 idea of the writer's personality, you have been 
 introduced to no experience with which you 
 can compare your own. You have only had 
 your curiosity piqued for an unconscionable 
 length of time ; and when, at the close of the 
 third volume, the murder is out, you no more 
 think of reading the book over again, than, 
 reaching London by the night train from the
 
 136 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 North, you dream of returning for the mere 
 purpose of undergoing your journey a second 
 time. You have found out the secret, as you 
 have come to London. The carriage has been 
 the instrument in the one case, the three 
 volumes in the other, and your purposes with 
 both have been entirely served. It is by their 
 styles that writers are recognised, just as it is 
 by their gait, their bearing, their tones of voice, 
 and their numberless individual peculiarities 
 that you recognise men in the street or in the 
 drawing-room. Every sentence of the great 
 writer is like an autograph. There is no chance 
 of mistaking Milton's large utterance, or Jeremy 
 Taylor's images, or Sir Thomas Browne's quaint- 
 ness, or Charles Lamb's cunning turns of sen- 
 tence. These are as distinct and individual as 
 the features of their faces or their signatures. 
 If Milton had endorsed a bill with half-a-dozen 
 blank verse lines, it would be as good as his 
 name, and would be accepted as good evidence 
 in court. If Lamb had never gathered up his 
 essays into those charming volumes, he could be 
 tracked easily by the critical eye through all 
 the magazines of his time. The identity of these 
 men can never be mistaken. Every printed
 
 LITERARY WORK. 137 
 
 page of theirs is like a coat of arms, every 
 trivial note on ordinary business like the im- 
 pression of a signet ring. 
 
 As a whole, our literature, and especially our 
 periodical literature, is not distinguished at this 
 moment by style in any rich and characteristic 
 way. Much of the writing is commonplace, just 
 as a man's countenance is commonplace which 
 has no marked and prominent feature, which has 
 no individuality of expression, and which does 
 not differ in any material degree from the 
 countenances of his fellows. There is a cer- 
 tain weekly Review, which is much read, much 
 admired, and much feared. The writing is 
 extremely clever ; but the odd thing is, that the 
 writing is throughout of equal cleverness, and of 
 the same kind of cleverness. Each number is 
 level, like a grassy lawn, yet each number must 
 be the production of at least twenty able quills. 
 Have these twenty writers identical tempers, 
 identical brains, and identical experiences } Or 
 is the editor a sort of grass roller, which keeps 
 everything smooth and level .^ There is a cer- 
 tain weekly journal, conducted by a master of 
 fiction, which seems to be entirely written by 
 the editor; certain portions when the editor is
 
 138 LITERARY WORK. 
 
 at his best, other portions when his eyes were 
 weary. " Methinks there be six Richmonds in 
 the field " — one Richmond agile, and an able 
 swordsman ; five, who have received fencing 
 lessons from the master, who put continually in 
 practice his method of carte and tierce, but 
 who lack his stamina and dash. Such writing 
 is comparatively valueless, because it lacks in- 
 dividuality, and does not spring from any 
 peculiar personality. It is clever, of course ; 
 but the cleverness is acquired rather than native. 
 All the defects of our present literature may be 
 summed up in a word — want of style. And the 
 reason is not far to seek. Literature has be- 
 come a profession. Books are written too 
 hastily, and to serve a purpose too immediate. 
 In the days of the old masters of style, the 
 writer adorned his thoughts for the mere love 
 of adorning his thoughts : in the present state 
 of things, it is hardly to be expected that he 
 should put himself to any considerable trouble 
 on that score. The market of the old writer 
 was with posterity ; the market of the present 
 writer is in the next street. The Gothic 
 cathedral, whose front, from base to pinnacle, 
 is a floral burst and laughter of stone, was not
 
 LITERARY WORK. 139 
 
 built by estimate. The Gothic cathedral could 
 wait a century or so for a congregation. Before 
 our present churches are finished, the congrega- 
 tion are eager to enter and take their seats, to 
 criticise the interior decorations, and to hear 
 what the preacher has got to say. And yet in 
 this world there is no such thing as entire and 
 absolute loss. We cannot write so supremely 
 now as did the old men ; but this we can say 
 for ourselves, that while they served ten, we 
 serve a thousand ; that while they ornamented 
 sandals for nobles, we make boots and shoes 
 for the multitude ; and that it is better for every 
 man to have his beer in the pot, than that in 
 the midst of need there should be spread at 
 intervals a royal feast, with kings for guests, 
 and golden vessels on the table. There are no 
 dishes of peacocks' brains now, but there are 
 wholesome wheaten loaves for all.
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 N elancincf backward over the last cen- 
 tury and a-half of Scottish history, it 
 will be noticed that distinguished men 
 have come in clusters, and that the intellectual 
 products of these are visible in well-defined 
 belts or zones. Nature there, as elsewhere, built 
 capacious brains, and when her hand was in, it 
 was her habit to build more than one ; and so 
 the clever Scotchmen of a generation have a 
 family resemblance, and the works produced by 
 them have a family resemblance also. Hume, 
 Robertson, and Adam Smith came together ; 
 and through these we have the philosophic 
 and historical belt. Scott and Gait created the 
 imaginative belt ; Jeffrey, Wilson, and Lockhart 
 the critical belt. In any enumeration of eminent 
 Scotchmen the name of Burns cannot be omitted, 
 but then Burns has no place in any such loose 
 generalizations. In his greatness he is the lone- 
 liest of all the northern geniuses. He had,
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 141 
 
 strictly speaking, no predecessor, he had no 
 companion, he has had no successor. Critics 
 have delighted to point out that the " Farmer's 
 Ingle" of Fergusson was the prototype of the 
 "Cottar's Saturday Night," but the truth is, that 
 Fercfusson had no more share in the most ex- 
 quisite of homely idylls than the leaves of the 
 mulberry tree on which the silkworm feeds has 
 a share in the silk which is produced. Putting 
 Burns aside, as in some sense a special pheno- 
 menon, who must be considered by himself if 
 considered at all, the three broadly-marked belts 
 or zones of Scottish mental activity are indicated 
 by the "Essays, Moral and Philosophical," and the 
 " Wealth of Nations ;" the novels of Scott and 
 Gait ; and the Edinburgh Review and Black- 
 wood's Magazine. So much one can see looking 
 back on the past ; but it would be extremely 
 difficult to say what, since the establishment of 
 the famous Reviezv, and the still more famous 
 Magazine, is the salient outstanding feature of 
 Scottish intellectual life. And the difficulty lies 
 in this, that, ecclesiastical matters apart, there 
 has, during the last twenty or twenty-five years, 
 been hardly any distinctive Scottish life at all. 
 " Stands Scotland where it did ?" asks Macduff;
 
 142 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 and the answer to-day is, " No ; if you seek 
 Scotland, you must go to London for her." The 
 old frontier line has been effaced by the railway 
 and the post-office. The Tweed no longer 
 divides peoples with different interests. Scot- 
 land and England have melted into each other 
 and become Britain, just as red and blue melt 
 into each other and become purple ; and in the 
 general intellectual activity of the empire, it 
 would be as difficult to separate that contributed 
 by north and south as to separate the waters 
 of the Forth and the Humber in the German 
 Ocean, or the taxes gathered on either side of 
 the Tweed in the Imperial exchequer. John 
 Bull and Patrick serve in the ranks of the Black 
 Watch and the Greys, and Sandy is a sentry at 
 the Horse Guards. An English professor is the 
 most distinguished disciple of the Scottish Sir 
 William Hamilton ; and the representative of a 
 metropolitan constituency — a Scot at least by 
 extraction — is the intellectual descendant of the 
 English Bentham. It is from this interconnec- 
 tion of the two peoples, that for the last quarter 
 of a century there has been so little distinctive 
 Scottish intellectual life. Scotland has over- 
 flowed its boundaries, and it has no longer a
 
 777^ MINISTER-PAINTER. 143 
 
 separate existence in thought or geography. It 
 is not, however, to be supposed that, although 
 working under different conditions, there is any 
 diminution in the northern vigour. The Scot 
 thinks as shrewdly and acts as prudently in 
 Cheapside as at Aberdeen or at John o' Groat's ; 
 and when great things have to be done — when, 
 for instance, a treaty has to be negotiated with 
 China, when a revolted India has to be sub- 
 dued, when a " Life of Frederick " has to be 
 written — the doers of those feats of diplomacy, 
 arms, and letters, are not unfrequently found 
 wearing Scottish names. But the difficulty of 
 pointing out any broad, salient, outstanding 
 feature in Scottish intellectual life, does not 
 altogether arise from the cessation of that life 
 in the sense which has been explained, but in 
 some degree from the fact that, since the estab- 
 lishment of Blackwood's Magazine, Scottish in- 
 tellect and fancy have more and more sought a 
 new manifestation and direction. For long-, Scot- 
 land was the best educated and least aesthetic 
 nation in Europe. Beauty and ornament had 
 never specially been the denizens of the Scottish 
 house or the Scottish street; and at the Reforma- 
 tion they were sternly thrust forth and forbidden
 
 144 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 to enter the ecclesiastical edifice. In Scotland, 
 Beauty was churchless, and on Sundays had 
 to abide with the daisy in the field, the cloud- 
 shadow on the hill-side, and to consort with the 
 Poet, who was a commoner of Nature like her- 
 self, and under the same social ban. Not the 
 least religious nation in the world, the Scotch 
 were content to worship in barn-like buildings, 
 with windows hard in outline and innocent of 
 colour as those of factories ; and Music, sus- 
 pected of Popish parentage, and of haunting the 
 play-house and the opera, was turned away from 
 the church-door, and had to go romp in the fields 
 with Beauty and the Poet. Untouched by the 
 softening influences of art, the Scottish nation 
 was devout, deep-hearted, humorous, sincere ; 
 but it was harsh in manner, deficient in gra- 
 ciousness and suavity. The visitor, on coming 
 to Scottish towns, was struck by the lack of 
 politeness on the part of the inhabitants. He 
 saw them, unyielding as tides, jostle each other 
 on the pavement. If he asked to be directed to 
 a particular street, he not unfrequently received 
 a churlish response. He noted that in these 
 towns statues and public monuments were rare, 
 that they were disregarded and often ill kept ;
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 145 
 
 and, if a travelled man, he drew disadvantageous 
 comparisons between the Scottish towns and the 
 French or Italian ones. This hardness and lack 
 of graciousness, this lack of art and of regard 
 for art, was attributable to a considerable extent 
 to the national poverty and the national faith. 
 There is no social civiliser like art, but art does 
 not grow in poor countries any more than grapes 
 on poor soils. You may keep a poet on £^0 a 
 year, and get a good deal out of him, just as our 
 fathers for something like that sum got a tre- 
 mendous deal out of Burns ; but you cannot so 
 cheaply maintain painters and sculptors. If you 
 will adorn your apartments with their works, 
 they can at least claim upholsterers' wages. 
 And, putting inspiration out of the question 
 altogether, pigments and marble are much more 
 expensive than pens and ink, and the backs of 
 old letters, or excise schedules at a pinch. On 
 Calvinism you can breed first-rate men, but 
 not so easily first-rate artists. Art delights 
 in minster and cathedral, in painted window 
 and fuming incense, in gorgeous vestments and 
 the voices of singing-men and singing-women, 
 and finds but little sustenance in barn-like 
 
 churches, discordant psalmody, rigid pews, and 
 
 K
 
 146 777^ MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 intrepid, closely-knit, logical discourses. Scot- 
 land was a well-educated country, as countries 
 went, but it wanted artistic susceptibility ; and it 
 was only when it became comparatively rich, and 
 when its social atmosphere became a little more 
 genial, that art began to develop itself in any 
 general or unmistakeable manner. The picture 
 and the statue came with wealth into the private 
 apartment; the ornate church, the famous man 
 in bronze or marble, came with wealth into the 
 street ; and the public eye becoming accustomed 
 to these things, gradually learned to enjoy them. 
 The establishment of the Ediiibiirgh Review and 
 Blackwood s Magazine wdiS the last distinct phase 
 of Scottish — that is, of Scottish as distinct from 
 British — intellectual life ; and at that time Scot- 
 tish art was in its vigorous youth, and quite 
 abreast of Scottish literature. Scotchmen, save 
 in isolated instances, and generally out of their 
 own country, have done nothing very remarkable 
 in literature since ; but at home there has grown 
 up a school of art, distinct, vigorous, individual, 
 which has spread far and wide, and which has 
 more than one representative amongst the Forty 
 of the Royal Academy. The pen was long the 
 favourite weapon of the clever Scot, but since
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 147 
 
 John Wilson's time the cleverest men in Scot- 
 land have wielded the brush rather than the pen. 
 The school of Scottish art had at first, as was 
 natural, a good deal in common with the more 
 favourite form of Scottish literature — of poetry- 
 more especially. When the northern genius was 
 not piercingly lyrical — tingling to the very 
 marrow in song and ballad — it was for the most 
 part garrulous and manners-painting. Rustic 
 life, with its humours, its fun, its jealousies, its 
 petty passions, its coarsenesses even — when these 
 were reflected in some incident like a marriage, 
 a festival, a fair, or a wapinschaw — has always 
 had special attraction for the Scottish muse. 
 This vein of manners-painting is visible from 
 " Christ's Kirk on the Green," down through 
 the " Gentle Shepherd " of Ramsay, the " Leith 
 Races" of Fergusson, the "Jolly Beggars" and 
 " Hallowe'en " of Burns, to the " Anster Fair" of 
 Tennant ; and in the same way, and for the same 
 reasons, the Scottish school of painting abounds'in 
 admirable representations of rustic life : witness 
 the best pictures of David Allan, the " Penny 
 Wedding," and a dozen others of Sir David 
 Wilkie, the " Curlers " of Mr Harvey, and the 
 works of many others less distinguished. The
 
 148 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 Scottish painters have in an indirect, yet most 
 sufficient manner, illustrated the Scottish poets. 
 In this special department Scottish art will take 
 rank with Dutch — with the advantage that it 
 has more esprit and less of mere vulgar swilling 
 and boorishness. In the domain of highest art — 
 just as there is no northern Spenser or Milton — 
 Scotland is behind England, and has, perhaps, no 
 proper representative, if we except the late Mr 
 David Scott and the present Mr J. Noel Paton. 
 In portraiture and landscape the Scottish school 
 excels. In the department of portraiture the 
 Scotch are distinguished by a solidity of basis 
 and treatment, and a direct going at essentials 
 to the neglect of subsidiaries. Any one look- 
 ing at the men Sir Henry Raeburn, Sir John 
 Watson Gordon, and Mr Macnee have painted, 
 will see that, in the delineation of character- 
 istic heads and faces, of men who are individual 
 and not conventional, the national shrewdness, 
 humour, biographical talent, and insight, have 
 in the most mysterious way become mixed with 
 the colours. I say the men these artists have 
 painted, for somehow they have not succeeded 
 so well with women. If the Scotch style has a 
 specialty, it is that of robustness, of solid force and
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 149 
 
 character — elements which are much more mas- 
 cuHnc than feminine. Given a granite-faced 
 Provost of Peterhead, wrinkled all over with 
 shrewd, pawky, tell-tale lines, and there are 
 half-a-dozen Scotchmen who will paint him so 
 to the life, that the spectator will know what 
 kind of a voice he has, whether he has been 
 married twice, and what he usually takes for 
 breakfast. Given an elegant lady, and perhaps 
 Sir Francis Grant is the only Scotchman who 
 can paint her in her self-possession and easy 
 security — high bred to the finger-tips, and per- 
 fectly comme ilfaut in every least matter of de- 
 tail. Sir Henry Raeburn struck the key-note of 
 Scottish portrait painting, and it is vibrating 
 still. In Scottish landscape again — which par- 
 takes of similar characteristics — the key-note 
 was struck by the Rev. John Thomson of Dud- 
 ingstone ; and his influence is still observable, not 
 only in Mr Macculloch's " cold and splendour of 
 the hills," in the Wordsworthian repose of Mr 
 Harvey's pastoral hill-sides, but in Mr Peter 
 Graham's " Mountain River in Flood," amongst 
 the landscapes of the Royal Academy of this 
 year the observed of all observers. 
 
 Mr Thomson, while he lived, was the most
 
 I50 THE MINISTER-PAINTER 
 
 distinguished landscape painter of the Scottish 
 school ; and he was unique in this, that he was 
 clergyman as well as painter : that it was his 
 work to study the page of Nature and the page 
 of Revelation. It would be interesting to know, 
 if it were at all now possible, how he conducted 
 this double life — if the artistic and clerical ele- 
 ments lived together, reciprocally enriching and 
 assisting each other — the one bringing reverence 
 and sanctity into his studio, the other bringing 
 pictures into his sermons. When discoursing 
 on the Dead Sea, did he behold in imagination 
 the red hills of Moab looming low on the 
 horizon } If prelecting on the passage — as in 
 the course of his ministrations it is likely that 
 he would prelect — And Abraham rose up early 
 in the morning, and saddled his ass, and took 
 two of his yonng inen with him, and Isaac his 
 son, and clave the wood for the burtit-offering, 
 and rose tip, and went nnto the place of which God 
 had told him. Then on the third day A braJiani 
 lifted np his eyes, and sazu THE PLACE 
 AFAR OFF — one would like to know what 
 mental image he formed of the yet untempled 
 Moriah ; was it a Syrian mount, or the double- 
 peaked Benledi — the Hill of God of his own
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 151 
 
 country — with the Scottish morning spread 
 above it ? One would Hke to know, if one could, 
 whether Thomson brought the landscape painter 
 with him into the pulpit. But of his quality 
 as a preacher no information can be obtained. 
 The people who bought his pictures did not 
 care for his sermons ; the people who listened 
 to his sermons did not care for his pictures. 
 His parishioners regarded his landscape paint- 
 ing as they regarded his violin playing — a 
 pretty amusement enough, but one not in the 
 least befitting the dignity of his cloth. Thomson 
 was, no doubt, an excellent preacher, after a 
 quiet, elegant, unenthusiastic, charitable fashion. 
 He was in every way an accomplished man. He 
 had a competent knowledge of literature, and, 
 when working on his landscapes, was in the habit 
 of reciting from the classical and English poets 
 passages that seemed to illustrate the scene he 
 was depicting ; he was an exquisite musician ; 
 he was well read in the natural sciences, and con- 
 tributed several papers on such subjects to the 
 Edinburgh Review. We know how he painted, 
 we can guess how he preached ; and the fact 
 that he was both preacher and painter takes 
 him out of the category of ordinary men. A
 
 152 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 solitary, sad-eyed, mediaeval monk, illuminating 
 missals in a cloistered silence, broken only by 
 the tinkling of refectory or prayer bells, is 
 familiar enough to the imagination ; but a mo- 
 dern Presbyterian clergyman, painting pictures 
 on week days, and preaching sermons on Sun- 
 days ; writing papers on optics for the Edinburgh 
 Review, and drawing tears in the evening in his 
 drawing-room by his violin performances; throw- 
 ing down his brushes of a forenoon, placing 
 against the wall a picture of the Bass, with a 
 thunder-cloud blackening over it ; going out to 
 see an ailing parishioner, noting on his way how 
 a sunbeam made gleam the ivies on Craig- 
 millar which a shower had just wet, and return- 
 ing to receive to dinner Sir Walter Scott, fresh 
 from the " Bride of Lammermoor ;" or Sir 
 David Wilkie, fresh from Spain and the study 
 of Velasquez — this complex activity, this variety 
 of duty, this fulness of noble life, is something 
 not very frequently met with. 
 
 Young Thomson was born at Dailly in Ayr- 
 shire, of which parish his father was minister, in 
 the latter half of the last century ; and there, 
 amid the beautiful scenery surrounding him, he 
 nourished his taste for landscape. His father
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 153 
 
 destined him for the sacred profession ; and, in 
 accordance with a Scottish fashion not yet 
 obsolete, at a very early age he was sent to the 
 University of Edinburgh, to attend literary and 
 philosophical classes, preparatory to entering on 
 the study of divinity. At the lodgings of his 
 elder brother, who had come to Edinburgh some 
 years before, and who, in after life, became dis- 
 tinguished as a feudal lawyer and an anti- 
 quarian, the enthusiastic young man made the 
 acquaintance of Walter Scott, Francis Jeffrey, 
 and others. He stuck to his work during the 
 winter sessions ; but in his summer vacations at 
 home he devoted himself to painting and violin 
 playing, to the no small consternation of his 
 father, who could not help marvelling at the 
 strange bird growing up in the quiet, orderly, 
 clerical nest. All this while, whatever may 
 have been his progress, he had no teacher but 
 Nature, and it was only during the last year of 
 his theological curriculum that he had the ad- 
 vantage of lessons from Alexander Nasmyth, and 
 that only for the period of one month. At the 
 age of twenty-one, he was licensed ; and on the 
 death of his father, in the first year of the cen- 
 tury, he succeeded to the Dailly manse and the
 
 154 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 Dailly pulpit. A year after, he married ; and in 
 a house rapidly filling with babies he composed 
 his sermons, painted his pictures, and played on 
 his violin. In 1 805 he was translated to the parish 
 of Duddingstone, near Edinburgh — a place per- 
 haps the best suited for him in Scotland — where 
 he could .walk out into the fields at eventide, 
 like Isaac ; where he could watch the purple 
 thunder-gloom gathering on the distant hills, like 
 Claude. 
 
 In May, passing along the Queen's Drive in 
 a south-easterly direction — sheep and lambs 
 bleating above, the starling glistening as it 
 sweeps past through the sunshine — you see Dud- 
 dingstone Loch beneath you, with its stunted 
 and pollard willows, whitey-green in the wind, 
 its banks and promontories of rushes, its swans 
 and beds of water lilies, its cloud-shadows 
 crossed by the trail of low-flying teal. Pro- 
 ceeding some twenty yards or so, you come in 
 sight of the little village itself, and note its grey, 
 low-roofed Norman-like church, its scattered 
 houses, with garden-slopes behind filled with 
 plum and apple blossom ; its yellow-faced inn, 
 in which tradition mumbles Prince Charles slept 
 the night before the battle of Prestonpans, or
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 155 
 
 else the night after ; and the swiftly-greening 
 woods beyond, stretching towards Portobello 
 and the sea. As you look down upon it from 
 the Drive, 'tis a mere toy-village, breathing 
 soft smoke pillars, breathing fruit-tree fragrance. 
 The quietest place in the whole world, you 
 would say ; not a creature to be seen in the 
 little bit of a street visible ; silent as Pompeii 
 itself; motion only on the lake, when the coot 
 shoots across its surface, or when a swan, thrust- 
 ing its long neck under water, tilts itself upward in 
 its preposterous fashion. And this little clachan 
 of twenty or thirty houses is walled, too, like 
 a Babylon or Nineveh ; its wall not one on 
 which six chariots could race abreast, but of 
 strictly modest pretensions. Descending on 
 Duddingstone, you find it retired, low-lying, 
 sunshiny, umbrageous ; a place in which in 
 summer you may expect plenty of dust in the 
 narrow streets, plenty of drowsy bees around 
 the double-flowered white and purple stocks in 
 the gardens, plenty of flies buzzing in the sunny 
 parlour windows. You see the old low-roofed 
 Norman-looking church — several centuries old 
 some portions of it, antiquaries say — with its 
 pointed windows and flagged roof; the church-
 
 156 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 yard heaped and mounded with generations on 
 generations of village dead; the rusty "jougs" 
 — an iron collar, in which malefactors did pen- 
 ance of old — hanging on the churchyard wall 
 near the gate of entrance, with its " louping-on- 
 stane," well worn by the hob-nails of dead 
 farmers. Near the church is the manse, in 
 which the minister-painter lived, looking out 
 with all its windows on the lake ; on ivied Craig- 
 millar, in which Queen Mary dwelt ; on the low 
 hills of Braid, over whichMarmion rode, and on 
 which Fitz Eustace 
 
 Raised his bridle hand, 
 And made a deniivolte in air, 
 
 at sight of the old Edinburgh of the Jameses, 
 smoke-swathed ; and beyond, on the lovely un- 
 dulating line of the Pentlands, stained, as in 
 these bright spring days, with the white uproll- 
 ing vapour of the heather-burnings. Dudding- 
 stone is the prettiest place in the neighbourhood 
 of Edinburgh in summer; and it is, if possible, 
 still more worth seeing about Christmas. Then 
 the swans are of course gone ; the chestnuts have 
 lost their broad drooping fans, and have donned 
 their strange snow draperies ; from out the frosty
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 157 
 
 blue, white Arthur's Seat looks down on the 
 little village. At that season Edinburgh flocks 
 Duddingstone-wards. Pedestrians and carriages 
 stand along the margin of the loch; carriages 
 and pedestrians move slowly along the Queen's 
 Drive above. The lake itself is crowded as 
 Vanity Fair; skaters shoot hither and thither; 
 while in a carefully-preserved circle, members 
 of the Edinburgh Skating Club go through 
 the most graceful evolutions, and interweave 
 with each other the prettiest loops and chains. 
 At a little distance the curlers are busy, their 
 faces red with exercise, their eyes bright with 
 excitement, the on-lookers stamping their chilled 
 feet in the snow, and attempting to breathe a 
 little warmth into their frost-bitten fingers. 
 Elsewhere, on great belts of slides, people are 
 working" their arms like awkward windmills. 
 Here skims a skate-shod Diana — fleet huntress 
 of men ! — yonder, in a sleigh driven by admirers, 
 sits a lady enveloped in furs. Past your ear 
 whizzes a shinty ball, and down upon you in hot 
 pursuit thereof comes, with a noise like a troop 
 of wild horses, a horde of young fellows, each 
 armed with a cudgel, a long-haired Highlander 
 leading the charge — as Murat was wont to do —
 
 158 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 several lengths in front. The Highlander is up 
 with the ball, as he turns on it his foot slips, and 
 in a moment the crowd are over him. There is 
 a general melh, and then out of the crowd, and 
 in an opposite direction, spins the ball, another 
 fellow leading the pursuit now, the eager crowd 
 streaming behind him like a comet's tail. So 
 around Duddingstone the seasons come and go 
 — so they came and went while Thomson lived 
 there, with umbrageousness of summer, pallor 
 of winter; each differing from the other, yet 
 each aiding the painter's education. 
 
 In the pretty Duddingstone manse Thomson 
 established himself, and there, for thirty-five 
 years, his life flowed on peacefully, prosperously, 
 honoured by high and low. As a clergyman, 
 he was much esteemed by his parishioners, con- 
 sisting mainly of well-to-do folks who lived in 
 villas, small market -gardeners who brought 
 their produce into Edinburgh, and washerwomen 
 who worked for the inhabitants of the city, wash- 
 ing the clothes in the loch, and bleaching and 
 drying them on the slopes of Arthur's Seat, 
 where they caught the scent of the broom. To 
 the former class, the minister commended himself 
 by his accomplishments, his gentlemanly man-
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 159 
 
 ners, and his distinction ; to the latter by his 
 liberahty and kind-heartedness, and his frank 
 ways of going in and out amongst them. The 
 price of many a landscape came to the poor 
 people, when sickness or distress was prevalent, 
 in the shape of bottles of wine or even of com- 
 forts more substantial. It was at Duddingstone 
 that Thomson first devoted himself to landscape 
 painting as a profession. Craigmillar was before 
 his eyes every time he looked out of his window, 
 and this subject he frequently painted — often 
 with grand effect by moonlight. While at Dailly 
 he distributed landscapes amongst his friends; at 
 Duddingstone he accepted payment. The first 
 picture was sold for fifteen guineas ; and the 
 artist, it is said, was so startled by the mighty 
 sum, that it was only when Mr Williams, the 
 delineator of Greek scenery, whom he con- 
 sulted on the subject, told him that the work was 
 worth three times as much, that he could comfort- 
 ably consign the coins to his breeches pocket. 
 As his reputation rose the demand for his works 
 increased, and in his heyday of health and artis- 
 tic prosperity, he was in the receipt of ii^iSoo per 
 annum. Some idea of Thomson's industry may 
 be gathered from the prices he received. For a
 
 i6o THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 picture thirty inches long, and from twenty to 
 twenty-five inches broad, he got twenty-five 
 guineas ; for one forty-eight or fifty inches by 
 thirty-six, his price was fifty guineas. These 
 Avere high prices for a Scottish artist at that date ; 
 and for the works executed for the Duke of 
 Buccleuch, and which may be seen at Bowhill, he 
 received still larger sums. His passion for his art 
 grew with his years, and he searched the country 
 for subjects for his easel with greater ardour, one 
 almost fears, than he showed in searching the 
 Scriptures for texts for his sermons. His pulpit at 
 Duddingstone had to be filled of course, but then 
 the capital was near and probationers were plenti- 
 ful. By the time the young artist left the manse on 
 Saturday afternoon, the probationer had arrived 
 with a couple of sermons in his carpet-bag. In 
 company with his friend Mr Williams — "Grecian 
 Williams" he was called, familiarly and afTection- 
 ately, from those pictures already alluded to on 
 which his reputation mainly rests — he explored 
 the country for ancient houses with trees round 
 them, picturesque glens, castles beetling over the 
 sea, and bare moors with a group of old Scotch 
 lirs, their bronze trunks and black-green crowns 
 glowing in the fires of autumn sunset. The
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. i6i 
 
 two friends sketched together and were each the 
 other's critic. In these passionate sketching pil- 
 grimages, extending over many years, Thomson 
 visited the most picturesque districts of Scotland, 
 and painted Dunstafifnage, Dunluce, Wolfs Crag, 
 the Falls of Kilmorack, Glenfinlas, Lochs Awe 
 and Etivc ; nay, he even penetrated as far as 
 Skye and painted the magnificent peak of Ben 
 Blaven, and the edges of Cuchullin holding dark 
 communion with the cloud. Being a clergyman, 
 Thomson, although urged to do so, \vould never 
 become a member of any incorporated body of 
 artists ; but he always sent his pictures to the 
 Exhibitions of the Royal Scottish Academy. 
 From 1808 to 1840 he contributed to those 
 exhibitions one hundred and nine works. He 
 not the less was strangely disinclined to exhibit 
 in London, and, as a rule, Englishmen are not 
 acquainted with his pictures. In the beginning 
 of the year 1840 his health began to fail; but 
 though no improvement took place during sum- 
 mer, he still worked on at picture and sermon. 
 Conscious that his end was nigh, on a lovely 
 October afternoon he desired to be taken to a 
 window, and propped up by pillows, that he might 
 watch once more the setting sun. It was a last
 
 i62 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 interview between the ancient friends — an eternal 
 farewell-taking. The sun set ruddily. Thomson 
 was dead next morning. He was twice married 
 — happily both times — and his portrait, by his 
 son-in-law, Mr Robert Scott Lauder, hangs in 
 the Scottish National Gallery. 
 
 During Thomson's life, Duddingstone Manse 
 was not more remarkable for exquisite picture 
 painting and violin playing than for the distin- 
 guished men occasionally gathered under its roof. 
 When Thomson came up to Edinburgh as a stu- 
 dent, he made the acquaintance of Scott and 
 Jeffrey, and during life his friendship with both 
 remained unimpaired. Sir Thomas Dick Lauder, 
 and John Clerk (Lord Eldin), who with a Homeric 
 conviviality, broad humorous speech, and eccen- 
 tric manners, combined a love of art, and had 
 made an admirable collection of paintings, draw- 
 ings, prints, and etchings, were frequent visitors 
 at the manse. John Wilson, as great a landscape 
 painter in words as Thomson in colours, occasion- 
 ally dropped in on the minister to discuss the 
 Greek and Latin poets with him, and to see what 
 landscape was smiling or glooming on his canvas. 
 I am indebted for the following note concerning 
 the painter's artistic friends, to Mr W. B. John-
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER, 163 
 
 stone, Curator of the Scottish National Gallery, 
 and himself an admirable artist, the extent of 
 whose information on such matters is only- 
 equalled by his courtesy in imparting it : — 
 
 " I think Thomson preferred the company of 
 artists to that of literary men or lawyers, and 
 after painters he liked to have musicians about 
 him. During his earlier career there were few 
 artists of sufficient standing to be associated 
 with him on equal terms. I can only call to 
 remembrance Alexander Naismith, Raeburn, and 
 H. W. Williams, who could be ranked pari passu. 
 But when Thomson was at his best, Naismith 
 had become an old cynical man ; and although 
 it is said that Thomson had taken lessons from 
 him, their styles were wide apart, and Thom- 
 son's was more generally admired. Raeburn, 
 engrossed with the study of character and ex- 
 pression in the human face, looked on landscape 
 as a mere accessory to art. He was intimate 
 with Thomson, admired his genius and general 
 accomplishments, respected his social position ; 
 but the congeniality of feeling between the men 
 may be doubted from the following transaction : 
 — They agreed to change pictures ; Raeburn 
 was to paint Thomson's portrait, and in return
 
 1 64 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 Thomson was to paint a landscape. Thomson 
 sat to Raeburn, and the portrait was painted ; 
 and although Thomson repeatedly offered to fulfil 
 his part of the agreement, Raeburn declined to 
 give up the portrait, and, accordingly it has 
 never been out of the possession of Raeburn and 
 his family. " Grecian Williams " was a man after 
 Thomson's own heart. They were about the 
 same age, they were ardent worshippers of 
 Nature, which they looked on exactly in the 
 same preconceived idea or aspect, viz., the classic 
 form, and no petty jealousy could have place 
 between them, as the one worked in oils, the 
 other in water colours. Williams was possessed 
 of some literary taste, was quiet and gentlemanly 
 in his manners, and was, like Thomson, on terms 
 of intimacy with most of the principal Edin- 
 burgh men. William Allan and Andrew Wilson 
 were on friendly terms with the minister, and 
 were with him occasionally at the manse ; but 
 Thomson had now achieved a high position, 
 and a number of clever young artists were 
 springing up, and he took pleasure in having 
 them rather than their ciders around him. Of 
 the young artists, Robert Scott Lauder and 
 William Simson were most frequently at the
 
 777^ MINISTER-PAINTER. 165 
 
 manse. Lauder was there almost daily ; his 
 admiration of Thomson was unbounded. The 
 rich tones of colour he generally attained in his 
 own pictures much resembled those Thomson 
 often successfully produced, and Thomson's 
 liking for the young artist was confirmed when 
 he afterwards became his son-in-law. Simson's 
 style was not what Thomson aimed at, yet the 
 feelincf for Nature and the admirable execution 
 impressed Thomson most favourably; and many 
 of the figures, vessels, etc., in Thomson's pictures 
 are evidently the work of this artist's dexterous 
 hand. Thomas Duncan was an occasional visitor. 
 Thomson marked him as a rising man, and 
 Duncan had a high respect for the talent of 
 Buddy, as he styled the minister (who was rather 
 slovenly in his dress, the front of his waistcoat 
 being generally besmeared with snuff), but their 
 aims in art were widely apart ; Duncan could 
 never get up, or cared to evince the same ad- 
 miration for a landscape as for a figure picture. 
 Thomson showed a great liking for Horatio 
 Macculloch, and when he came up from Glasgow 
 or Hamilton, where he then resided, to the open- 
 ing of the Annual Exhibition at Edinburgh, he 
 had him always to dine at the manse. Many
 
 1 66 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 other young artists — Sir Francis Grant, the Presi- 
 dent of the Royal Academy, then commencing 
 his career, E. T. Crawford, Robert Gibb, and 
 others — were kindly noticed by Thomson and 
 asked to his house. He kept almost an open 
 house ; and when distinguished artists came from 
 London — Wilkie or Turner, for instance — his 
 young friends were always invited to dine at the 
 manse, in order that they might meet and be 
 introduced to the brilliant strangers." 
 
 All this shows a kindly, composed, generous 
 disposition, far above professional vanity and 
 rivalry, which is pleasant to contemplate. Turner 
 was frequently at the manse, and we all know 
 the story how when the minister took the brzisqiie 
 painter into his studio and showed him his works, 
 he called out, "You beat me in frames, Thom- 
 son ! " On another occasion, at Duddingstone, 
 when Francis Grant and Mr Horsman, M.P.> 
 were present. Grant, who then resided in Regent's 
 Park, near the Zoological Gardens, asked the 
 great painter to dine with him. " I'll be very 
 glad," cried Turner jocosely ; " I often come to 
 see the wild beasts feed." 
 
 Thomson, during his lifetime, was the greatest 
 Scottish landscape painter, and even yet he is
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 167 
 
 one of the greatest which the northern school 
 has produced. His style was based on classic 
 nodels, he was a devout student of Claude and 
 tie Poussins, but this study of the old masters of 
 landscape was supplemented by a constant refer- 
 erce to Nature. He worked constantly in the 
 op;n air, and face to face with his subject. 
 Wiile a young man, and living in his father's 
 maise at Dailly, he would frequently go out at 
 twc o'clock an a summer morning, and walk 
 sevTal miles, to watch the effect of the early 
 suroeams penetrating the tree branches, retiring 
 ste] by step to note the changes of the light. 
 Maiy of the old fastnesses on the Scottish 
 coat he sketched on the spot. Although de- 
 fecive in drawing, he was fond of colour, and by 
 repinting on his pictures succeeded in producing 
 a sirface which increased the richness and lustre 
 of his tints. But his gains in this way were not 
 enirely clear. In the hurry and excitement of 
 hi task, he often worked over his surface before 
 tk under colours were dry ; and as in laying 
 01 his colours he used various kinds of medium, 
 o vehicle, to attain brilliancy and depth of 
 ttne, many of his pictures have suffered by con- 
 t action and cracking, and are now but the dim
 
 i68 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 ghosts of themselves — the battle flag, shot-torn, 
 and smoke-stained, as compared with the origi-< 
 nal silken sheet. An incomplete draughtsman 
 Thomson had yet fine general ideas of form ani 
 the effect of grand lines. His works are alwars 
 
 O m 
 
 bold, picturesque, vigorous, and they never fiil 
 to impress the imagination. He is always great 
 in masses, and having by that means toucted 
 the soul of the spectator, he allows the spectaior 
 to supply the details. He pours himself, s( to 
 speak, on the key of the position in glocmy 
 brigades of strength, and, having won tha^ is 
 satisfied — he does not waste himself in skirmsh- 
 ing, however brilliant. There is no play in his 
 pictures. The truth is, he was always a litle 
 divided in his allegiance between Nature aid 
 the Poussins. He was all for Nature in lis 
 sketch in the open air, he was all for Pousin 
 while working in his studio. His pictures, wth 
 their incontestable fine qualities, are just a litle 
 too like pictures. Nature in them smells of dl, 
 somehow. Bold and noble as was his imagini- 
 tion, able to cope with scenes of gloom and pilel- 
 up rocky wildness, he lacked a tender sense <f 
 beauty and an exquisiteness of colour. Hb 
 picture of the Trossachs, in the Scottish Nationd
 
 THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 169 
 
 Gallery, is ugly almost ; the hills are lumpy and 
 unrelieved by the grace of twinkling birch woods, 
 and there are no distant peaks, as in Nature, 
 softened by miles of airy azure. Light, which 
 laughs and plays, and sleeps smilingly when it 
 does sleep, is sad-visaged in this work as a mute 
 at a funeral. In colour, again, Thomson, although 
 often grand and imposing in a broad general 
 way, is seldom what can be called exquisite — 
 the world with a sun shining upon it is not 
 cloaked in drabs, russets, dark-greens, and 
 blacks, as the artist loved to attire her. Thom- 
 son's pictures have many of them lost their 
 pristine brilliancy and freshness ; but even when 
 straight from his hand one can hardly conceive 
 them to have been other than deficient in this 
 respect. 
 
 The stranger entering the Scottish National 
 Gallery, after he has passed Tintoretto's " Vene- 
 tian Senators," Vandyck's " Italian Nobleman in 
 Armour," — who seems one of " God's spies," 
 watching every person in the room, listening to 
 every word they utter, — and the seven or eight 
 glowing Ettys, will probably seek the works of 
 the first great master of Scottish landscape. 
 There are seven of them, four the bequests of
 
 I/O THE MINISTER-PAINTER. 
 
 the late Professor Pillans. "Bruce's Castle of 
 Turnberry," a sunset, grand and sombre, but 
 cracked through the use of some pestilent 
 vehicle, will give some idea of what Thomson 
 was at his best ; while " The Frith of Clyde, 
 with Benlomond in the distance," " Ravensheuch 
 Castle, near Kirkcaldy, Sunset," are beautiful 
 reminiscences of that richness and depth of tone 
 which distinguished this artist's works when they 
 were fresh from his hand. And, having satisfied 
 himself with these, if he will step across the 
 room and study Mr Horatio Macculloch's " In- 
 verlochy Castle," he will see what progress in 
 the painting of landscape has been made in 
 Scotland during the last twenty years ; how far 
 it has receded from Claude and the Poussins, 
 how much closer it has come to Nature.
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
 EN years ago the readers of the maga- 
 zines and critical reviews could hardly 
 fail to encounter unfavourable strictures 
 on what was called the " Spasmodic School of 
 Poetry." The three or four writers supposed to 
 constitute that " school " were, at the period re- 
 ferred to, passing through the fires of exhorta- 
 tion, reproof, and parody. The nickname was 
 the invention of a brilliant poet and wit, recently 
 gone to his rest ; and it had a nickname's best 
 prosperity — it stuck. That this said nickname 
 had, in some rough obvious manner, hit off the 
 salient characteristics and defects of the "school," 
 was evident from the favour with which it was 
 received. The quaint brain of Professor Aytoun 
 shaped the happy phrase ; and immediately 
 thereafter the three or four writers were every- 
 where recognised as " spasmodists," just as, since 
 Mr Bright, in his speech a short while ago, 
 alluded to the cave of Adullam and its inhabi-
 
 1 72 5 YDNE Y DO BELL. 
 
 tants, Lords Grosvenor and Elcho, Messrs 
 Horsman and Lowe, have been " Adullamites," 
 or "Dwellers in the Cave," to all the world. 
 Nothing- tells like a nickname which catches the 
 
 o 
 
 popular ear, and which is called out at every 
 street corner. The nickname " Spasmodic School" 
 grew popular, and in a short time it became the 
 critical stock-in-trade of provincial newspapers, 
 just as if they had been its sole inventors, and 
 had taken out a patent for its exclusive use. 
 For a while, no one of the writers could air him- 
 self in public in a volume of verse, however staid 
 and hum-drum, without the cry of "spasmodist " 
 being raised, here, there, and everywhere, so 
 loudly that he was glad to retreat again into 
 his shell. All this is a matter of ten years ago. 
 For seven years past the magazine reader has 
 heard nothing of the "Spasmodic School," — it 
 is the lost pleiad of the critical firmament. 
 Oblivion distributeth her poppies with an equal 
 hand. " Firmilian," too, has been forgotten in 
 these years. The nicknamed and the nicknamer 
 sleep in the same forgetfulness of reviews — like 
 foemen in one grave. 
 
 The reviews are powerful, but they are not 
 omnipotent ; and a man's work exists, after the
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
 173 
 
 reviewers have said their best and their worst 
 about it, precisely as it is. On the whole, there 
 is nothing more curious than the fluctuation of 
 literary reputations. A poet comes into fashion 
 very much as crinoline came into fashion, is uni- 
 versally quoted as crinoline was universally worn, 
 and in due time makes way for a new favourite. 
 Wordsworth's fame was of slow and cedar-like 
 growth ; but it attracted a larger number of pil- 
 grims fifteen years ago than it does now. Byron 
 sank after his death, and is slowly rising to be 
 permanently recognised, not as the greatest 
 poet, but as the greatest intellectual force and 
 portent of his time. His poetry was but the 
 brilliant hectic-coloured blossom ; the wholesome 
 fruit we were destined never to see. Had he 
 lived, it is plainly visible in the closing cantos of 
 " Don Juan," he would have deserted poetry for 
 prose fiction, and been our second Fielding, and 
 our greater. Keats culminated ten years ago, 
 on the publication of his " Life " by Lord Hough- 
 ton, and leads at present a sort of pale lunar- 
 rainbow existence in the pages of his imitators. 
 Several years since the Quarterly Review spoke 
 of Robert Browning as a man possessed of some 
 slight tincture of poetic individuality, and was 
 
 ^ 

 
 1 74 5 YDNE Y DO BELL. 
 
 (JA 
 
 good enough to quote with approval passages 
 from "Paracelsus "and "Bells and Pomegranates;" 
 to-day he is regarded by many as the most ori- 
 ginal of living poets, original in merit and defect, 
 in music, thought, and dramatic instinct. The 
 Laureate has long been popular, but he is 
 popular not so much from the essential merits 
 of his verse as from his exquisite form, exquisite 
 , finish, and the wonderful way in which he reflects 
 fi- W the culture, the sentiment, the refined lazy scep- 
 ticism made amiable only by its sadness, the 
 vague aspirations of English society. He holds 
 the mirror up to the time, but it is an enchanted 
 one, and reflects but noble faces. People will 
 weary of his finish as they weary of pictures 
 executed on ivory ; and he will be succeeded by 
 some far stormier and less perfectly balanced 
 spirit. While noticing this ebb and flow of 
 poetical reputations, it may not be too much to 
 infer that the oblivion to which the " Spasmodic 
 School" has been consigned for the last few 
 years has been to a considerable extent unde- 
 served. At all events, leaving the other writers 
 whom this matter may concern to shift for them- 
 selves, I am anxious to speak for a few pages 
 concerning Sydney Dobell, by far the most im-
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 175 
 
 portant member of the " school," and whom not 
 a few fairly intelligent persons in England and 
 America consider to have written some of the 
 noblest poetry of our day. In the courts of law, 
 when a man conceives that justice has not been 
 done, it is competent for him to call for a new 
 trial In the interest of Sydney Dobell, I move 
 for a new trial in the courts of criticism. 
 
 Originality, as it is called, is, in popular estima- 
 tion, a first merit in a writer ; but then this 
 originality may either attract or repel. In itself, 
 originality is not necessarily a merit. The 
 colour-blind man is original in a world of men 
 gifted with normal powers of vision. To a sane 
 individual there is nothing more frightfully ori- 
 ginal than the seething brain of a madman. 
 Our dreams are more original than our waking 
 moments, but they are, on the whole, less wise. 
 The feeling of strangeness with which one occa- 
 sionally, for the first time, peruses a book, does 
 not usually go for much. It frequently springs 
 from the mere foreign-looking husks and wrap- 
 pings of the matter — the wampum-belt and scalp- 
 tuft of the Pawnee Indian, the bear-skin and 
 snow-shoes of the Esquimaux — rather than from 
 the matter itself. The highest beauty does not
 
 176 5 YDNE Y DOBELL. 
 
 dazzle at first, it more frequently seems a simple 
 plainness. The writers who strike you as original 
 are never original enough, just as the man who 
 strikes you as cunning, has not been cunning 
 enough to hide his cunning. All the colours sleep 
 in a beam of pure white light. The generations of 
 books are like the generations of men, the one be- 
 gets the other, and not unfrequently the features of 
 an ancestor recur in a descendant of to-day. Ab- 
 solute originality, even were it possible, would be 
 of no effect. An absolutely original book would 
 resemble the scenery of the moon. It would be a 
 world without an atmosphere. In reading such a 
 book one would be reft away from the mighty aids 
 of association and use and wont. In the sense of 
 newness and strangeness, Australia is the most 
 original country on the planet, and it is the least 
 interesting. In the same sense, Asia and Europe 
 are the least original and the most interesting. 
 The strange kangaroo of the one continent is 
 as nothing to the homely sparrow of the other, 
 which has been man's companion and chirped 
 on his thatch during six millenniums. In poetry, 
 the gaudy parrot is as nothing compared with 
 the brown lark. It is astonishing when one re- 
 flects on it, to what few and simple root-ideas
 
 5 YDNE V DOB EL L. 177 
 
 the entire poetry of the world may be traced. 
 I am, I was, I love, I hate, I suffer, I am glad, I 
 must die — these lie at the bottom of all song. 
 After the death of Abel the first family had 
 pretty nearly gone the round of all possible ex- 
 periences. In the primordial elements of human 
 experience there is nothing trite — except to the 
 trite ; the only fruitful originality comes out 
 of an entire and noble apprehension of those 
 primordial elements, and the man who can to 
 that noble apprehension give musical utterance 
 is a poet, and a sufficiently original one, too, for 
 all purposes. The generations of singing birds 
 pass, but" the music of the spring mornings goes 
 on, although it has hardly changed a note since 
 Adam. Originality is not a thing which a man 
 can put on like a cloak to masquerade in. It is, 
 if he have it at all, the pure outcome of his per- 
 sonality — the clear, unobscured, unobstructed 
 utterance of his nature — that which is to himself 
 special and peculiar, like the tone of his voice 
 and the play of his features — an undefinable 
 something of which he is in the profoundest un- 
 consciousness, but by which he is made recog- 
 nisable and is set apart from other men. Thus 
 
 it comes about that the original man is the least 
 
 M
 
 178 5 YDNE V D OBEL L . 
 
 conscious of being original. It is easy for a 
 beauty to be beautiful, it is easy for an original 
 man to be original. And the undefinable some- 
 thing which sets a man apart from his fellows is 
 the most valuable thing in the world ; it is abso- 
 lutely priceless. You cannot forecast its next 
 manifestation any more than you can conceive 
 of a new colour. It cannot be imitated, it can 
 never be forged ; no counterfeit by any possibility 
 can ever pass current ; and yet every man and 
 woman is born into the world with some propor- 
 tion of it more or less. To this pure, clear, 
 natural note of the soul all the world listens — 
 for a whole grove of clever mocking-birds no one 
 cares. Nature makes the Koh-i-Noor, and 
 Birmingham will turn you out a bushel of imita- 
 tions. And it is this special and individual 
 something in great writers which, above all 
 things, subserves a noble culture. These men 
 bring a new thing into the world with them, and 
 when they die they leave it as an inheritance. 
 Scott writes, and the historic past is no longer 
 pale and cold, but warm and many-coloured. 
 Wordsworth writes, and ever after the solitariest 
 place breathes an austere contentment ; and to 
 the thoughtful man there is no such thing as
 
 5 YDNE V DO BELL. 1 79 
 
 utter loneliness in the world. Keats writes, and 
 the coldness of Greek marble is faintly tinged 
 with passion. 
 
 And in the sense of having something personal 
 and peculiar, some new thing to supplement and 
 enrich modern culture, Sydney Dobell is fairly 
 entitled to be considered an original poet. I 
 have remarked elsewhere that Chaucer and 
 Spenser are the fountain-heads of all succeeding 
 English poetry. Chaucer is the father of the 
 humorous, kindly, dramatic, genially-lyrical men ; 
 Spenser of the intense, allegorical, didactic, re- 
 mote, and, by comparison, unsocial men. Shake- 
 speare, Dryden, Burns, Byron, Browning, draw 
 descent from Chaucer. Milton, Young, Words^- 
 worth, Shelley, and Tennyson from Spenser. 
 Sydney Dobell, too, is of the line and stock of 
 Spenser. His mental constitution is high, soli- 
 tary, disdainful. His genius is of an ascetic and 
 fakir kind. He stands apart from his fellows, 
 and wraps himself up in the mantle of his own 
 thoughts. He is terribly self-conscious; he is 
 the slave of ideas ; he writes with a purpose, and 
 as if under a certain compulsion. There is 
 nothing he hates so intensely as commonplace ; 
 nothing he loves so intensely as beauty — the
 
 i8o 5 YDNE Y DOBELL. 
 
 more ideal the better; and in his fine music a 
 quick ear will not unfrequently detect a stri- 
 dulus tone, as if the string from which it is 
 drawn were a trifle too tightly strung. In 
 whatever he writes, whether he is purely and 
 simply beautiful, or haughty as Apollo consci- 
 ous of glowing limbs, or grotesque or extrava- 
 gant, you will find nothing done at hap-hazard ; 
 he knows precisely the why and the wherefore, 
 and will be able to render you a sufficient reason 
 for everything. If it be at all admissible, now 
 that the word has been so foully fingered and 
 misused, to call a man earnest, that man is 
 Sydney Dobell. He is essentially a missionary. 
 He has neither written for the mere enjoyment 
 of writing, nor for money, nor for fame, but 
 mainly because he has a doctrine to preach, a 
 cause to plead ; and this doctrine he has preached 
 in ears too long accustomed to sounding brasses 
 and tinkling cymbals to give heed to high dis- 
 course. Mr Carlyle preaches hero-worship, Mr 
 Dobell preaches genius-worship. At bottom 
 the two doctrines are essentially the same, only 
 the one man abides in the practical, the other 
 in the ideal. In Mr Dobell's conception, genius — 
 poetic genius, more especially — is ever a new
 
 5 YDNE Y DOB EL L 1 8 1 
 
 revelation to man. To him the poet is the 
 Teacher, bringing to his fellows new ideas of 
 truth, beauty, and morality. In his mind the 
 great poet is the most perfect human being, and 
 as the greater includes the less, he is at the same 
 time the true legislator and ruler. If as such 
 - he is not recognised by men, — why, then, the 
 worse for the men. Mr Dobell would have the 
 world sit at the feet of the poets, and shape 
 everything, not only private conduct, but Parlia- 
 ments, statute-books, home and foreign policies, 
 according to their behests. In his idea, a poem 
 should go forth like the proclamation of a king ; 
 adverse critics he regards as rebels against lawful 
 authority, and would probably have them exe- 
 cuted forthwith. To such a writer it will be at 
 _ once evident that poetry is no holiday pastime, 
 ■ but a most solemn and responsible duty, to the 
 " proper discharge" of which everything must be 
 brought of best, noblest, and bravest. To such 
 a man no labour can be too severe, no study too 
 intense, no experience too bitter : poverty, pain, 
 death itself would be even welcome, if so be he 
 could perfect his art, and thereby save, or help to 
 save, a world grievously out of joint. And the 
 poet must not only be true to other men, he must
 
 i82 5 YDNE Y DOBELL. 
 
 be true to himself. Never arrogant, he should 
 be always dignified ; he must remember that 
 there is no greatness beyond his own; that this 
 complex, visible world, with its capitals and 
 standing armies, is based upon ideas, and that 
 in the ideal department of things he is a king, 
 enforcing and abrogating laws at his pleasure. 
 Above all, he must remember that, as an apostle 
 of the Highest, it behoves him to take heed to 
 his walk and conversation. He has not only to 
 write poems, he must also live poems. The song 
 should be pure and noble, and so should also 
 the life of the singer be. As poetry is above 
 ordinary prose, so should his morality be above 
 ordinary morality. 
 
 This idea of the poet and the poetic life can- 
 not be regarded otherwise than as a high one. 
 Without some such basement of belief one can- 
 not see how, more especially in these times, the 
 poetic life can be conducted at all; but as, in 
 order that the tree shall leaf, and blossom, and 
 bear fruit, it is necessary that the root should 
 be hidden away under-ground, deep-sunk in 
 life-giving soil; so, in like manner, if the poet 
 would go on prosperously with his work, it is 
 essential that his belief and theories concerning
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 1 83 
 
 himself and his art should be buried in the silent 
 depths of his nature; that he should quietly 
 draw spiritual sustenance from these, and in no 
 wise obtrude them on the world. We have 
 nothing to do with the food which the athlete 
 devours, we have only to do with the results — 
 the mighty limbs, the iron sinews. There is 
 nothing with which a poet has less need to con- 
 cern himself than with poets and poetry, and 
 here it is that Mr Dobell has to some extent 
 gone astray. Poetry is not, or at all events 
 should not be, a Narcissus in love with his own 
 shadow, and eternally gazing upon it. It has to 
 do with everything except itself; it is the Divine 
 light in which we see heroism, duty, love, beauty, 
 death. It is not the hero, it is only the song 
 which celebrates the exploits of the hero. 
 Women are not specially interesting to women, 
 poets are not specially interesting to poets ; Mr 
 Dobell seems to have forgotten this, and in 
 " Balder" — his longest book, and, with all defects, 
 this primal one included, his greatest — he con- 
 cerns himself with a poet from first to last, gives 
 his soliloquies, his notions concerning his art, 
 quotes the songs he sung at intervals, the scraps 
 of verse with which he hung the walls of his
 
 1 84 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 
 
 chamber, and tells us what books he purposed 
 to write, through which to regenerate the world. 
 .'Balder" is the longest poem of our time, with 
 the exception, perhaps, of "Festus ;" and apart 
 from the exquisite songs of "Amy," which, , 
 if extracted, would of themselves make a 
 mournful anthology, there are not in its entire 
 length a dozen pages of purely human interest. 
 It contains wonderful things, it has passages of, 
 marvellous subtlety and music, but these fail to 
 make pleasing the stupendous egotism. Now, it 
 is evident that, if you wish to cure a sick man 
 you must give him a medicine which it is pos- ^ 
 sible for him to take ; and if you wish, by means 
 of a poem, to make the world better, you must 
 needs write a poem which it will be possible for 
 the world to read. "Balder " is, to the large majo- 
 rity of persons, simply unreadable, and this not 
 from any defect of genius, but because it is based 
 upon an erroneous theory. In " Balder," too, one 
 is perpetually conscious of a certain strain and 
 effort ; there is a lack of spontaneity, of easy, 
 unconscious, unsolicitous result, as of an ^olian 
 •harp sighing to the caprices of intermittent wind. 
 At times the writer almost ceases to be a poet, 
 and becomes a pamphleteer. In all Mr Dobell's
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 185 
 
 books intellectual subtlety plays him false ; not 
 unfrequently the dialectician overrides the poet. 
 When opportunity offers, he ceases singing to 
 
 argue 
 
 Like some budge doctor of the Stoic fur ; 
 
 and the matters over which he subtihses are 
 often the most filmy and intangible : he will un- 
 ravel you a thread of morning gossamer, he will 
 dissect you an ephemeron, he will lay you bare 
 the heart of a mote of the sunbeam. When he 
 grapples with a subject, both he and it, like 
 hawk and heron, disappear in the distance. He 
 defines everything to the vanishing point, and 
 beyond it. All this kind of thing seems labo- 
 rious trifling to a reader of normal instincts. 
 You can respect a whirlwind when it sinks a 
 ship, or blows down a house ; you cannot when 
 it merely makes a spire of dust and straws at 
 the corner of a street. Mr Dobell's remarkable 
 subtlety is in his art rather a hindrance than an 
 aid, and is so for several reasons. In the first 
 place, he has an entire and abiding, horror of 
 commonplace ; and although it may be seen 
 leading easily and definitely to results, he can- 
 not bear to walk, for ever so short a distance, in
 
 1 86 5 YDNE V DO BEL L . 
 
 a beaten path. Above all things, he will be 
 independent, original, and self-sustained. He 
 will lie under poetic obligations to no one. He 
 will not only build his house after his own 
 plan, but he insists in providing his materials 
 out of his own quarries and forests. Had it 
 been possible, he would have invented a lan- 
 guage of his own. He is continually " seeking 
 out a new path for himself," a task which Goethe 
 was happy in not having forced upon him. He 
 will always stand on virgin soil ; and as the 
 Red Indian retires into his aboriginal forests 
 when he smells the watchfire of the white 
 settler, Mr Dobell, on the approach of the ordi- 
 nary and commonplace, retires into the un- 
 pierced depths of his nature, where no one can 
 follow him, and where his subtlety is of none 
 effect, for the reason that it has no spectator. 
 Then, again, Mr Dobell is what Dr Johnson 
 would have • called a " metaphysical poet ; " 
 he has much in common with Cowley and 
 Donne in past generations, and with Shelley 
 in our own. Like these, he has a whole body 
 of ingenious theories, whimsies, and conceits on 
 every subject under the sun to enforce, illus- 
 trate, and uphold. In all this his amazing
 
 5 YDNE V D OBEL L. 187 
 
 subtlety has ample play; but then in the work 
 he is beyond the sympathies of his readers. 
 There is such an entity, doubtless, as the pure 
 spirit of life ; but we have knowledge of it only 
 through the form it assumes. There is such a 
 thing as the spirit of poetry, but it is only re- 
 cognisable in the concrete — in a flower, in a 
 lark's song, in a beautiful woman, in some 
 human experience more or less complex. Mr 
 Dobell's verse is often not sufficiently "clothed 
 upon ;" it does not take palpable form and sub- 
 stance, but abides in vague guesses and shadows 
 of things. It is too often like the night wind, a 
 haunter of waste and solitary places in which 
 there is no human dwelling ; and deals with a 
 something of which we are cognisant, but of 
 which the imagination can form no picture. 
 And as is not uncommon with earnest, eager, 
 theoretical men, Mr Dobell's volatile impractica- 
 bility of mind is unregulated by humour. He 
 is defective in that quick sense of the ludicrous 
 which is a man's best safeguard from absurdity, 
 both in literature and in social life. He has 
 plenty of wit, the brilliant sparks of collision, 
 
 the light 
 
 Struck out from clashing swords in fight ;
 
 1 88 5 YDNE y DOBELL. 
 
 but of humour, that other kind of love, with its 
 tenderness and sadness, without its fiery passion 
 and pain, there is, perhaps, not any very definite 
 trace discoverable in his writings. He is, in 
 consequence, always too trenchant and grimly 
 in earnest ; there is a lack of ease, of rapid light- 
 ness of touch, of graceful sportiveness. It is 
 from this lack of humour, I take it, that Mr 
 Dobell is too persistently dignified. The port 
 of a king in a grand state ceremonial is simply 
 laughable when transferred to his private apart- 
 ment or to his palace grounds, as he walks in them 
 of a morning before breakfast. Mr Dobell has 
 not learned how to unbend ; he is always in full 
 uniform, never in mufti. Like Shelley, he is a 
 great deal too constantly poetical. Genius is 
 the most precious of mental gifts, gold is the 
 most precious of metals ; but as you cannot 
 work gold without an alloy, you cannot make 
 much use of genius without an intermixture of 
 prosaic common-sense and mother-wit. 
 
 I have spoken thus frankly of what seem to 
 me Mr Dobell's defects, in order that I may just 
 as frankly speak of his merits. These are very 
 much higher than the general public appear at 
 all to be aware. For intellectual force, poetic
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 1 89 
 
 instinct and vitality, he may claim to be ranked, 
 pari passu, with Alfred Tennyson and Robert 
 Browning. He is, in the best sense, as has been 
 already indicated, an original man. He is a 
 poet ; but he bears to other poets such likeness 
 and difference as the birch bears to the elm 
 and the oak. He is of the same genus, but not 
 the same species. Of all recent writers, he seems 
 to bear the closest resemblance to Shelley. 
 He has much of Shelley's impracticability, 
 exaggeration, and hectic over-colour ; he has all 
 Shelley's subtlety, analytic habit and power, 
 splendour of imagery, dramatic instinct, and 
 rich-flowing lyrical impulse. There are as noble 
 passages in the " Roman " as you will find in 
 "Hellas;" there is as intricate searching of 
 dark bosoms and moods in " Balder " as in the 
 " Cenci ; " there are lyrics in " England in Time 
 of War" which will mate with the "Sensitive 
 Plant " and the " Skylark." And as, when a man 
 is under strong emotion, there gleams on his 
 countenance an expression which is not ordinarily 
 there, a look of race, in which father, grandfather, 
 and great-grandfather are blended ; so in Mr 
 Dobell's finer passages one discerns a something 
 native to himself and to none other; a some-
 
 190 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
 thing which finds its analogue in sculpture rather 
 than in painting ; a purity as of the undraped 
 limbs of the marble nymph ; a shining ethereal, 
 beauty, as of the cluster of white lilies which 
 female saints wear, as they rise, with clouds of 
 cherubs fluttering around their feet, into a 
 heaven of blue and gold, in mediaeval Italian 
 altar-pieces. 
 
 The " Roman " was published — the author yet 
 very young — in the after-swell of the revolu- 
 tionary impulse of 1848. It had a great success, 
 was admired by quick, vivid, impulsive Charlotte 
 Bront^ ; and was regarded by all capable of 
 forming a judgment in such matters, as the work 
 of a man certain to leave a name amongst the 
 poetical writers of his country. The work was 
 thrown into a loose dramatic form, and its 
 energy, enthusiasm, and eloquence were con- 
 sidered little less than marvellous. On the top 
 of the first page the author described his hero — 
 "Vittorio Santo, a missionary of freedom. He 
 has gone out disguised as a monk to preach the 
 unity of Italy, the overthrow of the Austrian 
 domination, and the restoration of a great Roman 
 Republic;" and from its subject it naturally 
 became a pendant to the " Deformed Trans-
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 191 
 
 formed " of Byron and the " Hellas " of Shelley. 
 The scenes are nine in number, and tell no very 
 closely-knit and connected story : the monk is 
 the main speaker throughout, and although there 
 is a monotony of eloquence inseparable some- 
 what from the conception and plan, vigour and 
 spirit never flag, and from beginning to close the 
 reader is carried stormily along. The tone is a 
 little too highly pitched all through ; now and 
 again there is a slight tendency to extravagance ; 
 but, apart from these defects of youth, born of 
 delight in the exercise of a newly-discovered 
 power, the style is unexceptionable — the Eng- 
 lish is clear, vivid, nervous, and without the 
 slightest haze of obscurity ; you are constantly 
 reminded of Byron in the swell and movement 
 of the verse. The first scene opens at evening 
 on an ancient Italian battle-field, on which a 
 number of young men and maidens are dancing 
 and singing. The monk is standing by, and at 
 length breaks in upon the dancers. He speaks 
 to them of Italy, his mother and theirs, and 
 how the ground they dance on is her grave. 
 The speech is too long to quote, but its drift 
 and character will be gathered from the fol- 
 lowing : —
 
 192 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
 I pray you listen how I loved my mother, 
 And you will weep with me. She loved me, nurst me, 
 And fed my soul with liglit. Morning and even 
 Praying, I sent that soul into her eyes. 
 And knew what heaven was though I was a child. 
 1 grew in stature, and she grew in goodness. 
 I was a grave child ; looking on her taught me 
 To love the beautiful : and I had thoughts 
 Of Paradise, when other men have hardly 
 Looked out of doors on earth. (Alas ! alas ! 
 That I have also learned to look on earth 
 When other men see heaven.) I toiled, but ever 
 As I became more holy, she seemed holier ; 
 Even as when climbing mountain-tops the sky 
 Grows ampler, higher, purer as ye rise. 
 Let me believe no more. No, do not ask me 
 How I repaid my mother. O thou saint. 
 That lookest on me day and night from heaven, 
 And smilest, I have given thee tears for tears, 
 Anguish for anguish, woe for woe. Forgive me. 
 If, in tlie spirit of ineffable penance 
 In words, I waken up the guilt that sleeps. 
 Let not the sound afflict thine heaven, or colour 
 That pale, tear-blotted record which the angels 
 Keep of my sins. We left her. I and all 
 The brothers that her milk had fed. We left her — 
 And strange dark robbers with unwonted names 
 Abused her ! bound her ! pillaged her ! profaned her ! 
 Bound her clasped hands, and gagged the trembling lips 
 That pray'd for her lost children. And we stood, 
 And slic knelt to us, and we saw her kneel. 
 And looked upon her coldly and denied her ! 
 Denied her in her agony — and counted 
 Before her sanguine eyes the gold that bought 
 Her pangs. We stood
 
 5 YDNE V D OB EL L. 193 
 
 Here the revellers, thinking that a veritable 
 mother of the flesh is spoken of, break in on the 
 monk and load him with reproaches and execra- 
 tions. He undeceives them : 
 
 You are my brothers. And my mother was 
 
 Yours. And each man amongst you day by day 
 
 Takes, bowing, the same price that sold my mother, 
 
 And does not bhish. Her name is Rome. Look round, 
 
 And see those features which the sun himself 
 
 Can hardly leave for fondness. Look upon 
 
 Her mountain-bosom, which the very sky 
 
 Beholds with passion ; and with the last proud 
 
 Imperial sorrow of dejected empire. 
 
 She wraps the purple round her outraged breast, 
 
 And even iA fetters cannot be a slave. 
 
 Look on the world's best glory and worst shame. 
 
 * • * » 
 
 They are some souls 
 That once took flesh and blood in Italy, 
 And thought it was a land to draw free breath in. 
 And drew it long, and died here ; and since live 
 Everywhere else. 
 
 * * » » 
 Look on that mother and behold her sons ! 
 Alas, she might be Rome if there were Romans ! 
 Look on that mother ! Wilt thou know that death 
 Can have no part in Beauty ? Cast to-day 
 
 A seed into the earth, and it shall bear thee 
 The flowers that waved in the Egyptian hair 
 Of Pharaoh's daughter ! 
 
 In such eloquent fashion storms on the pas- 
 sionate monk, until, recovering from his enthu- 
 
 N
 
 1 94 S YDNE V D OB EL L . 
 
 siasm, he finds that, with the exception of 
 Francesca, the revellers have one by one stolen 
 away. The monk perceives her, and she, with 
 all his words flaming in her heart, asks — 
 
 I have heard much to-night 
 Of Roman deeds, of sages, and of heroes, 
 Of sons who loved, and sons who have betrayed. 
 Hath Rome no daughters to repeat her beauty, 
 Renew the model of old time, and teach 
 Her sons to love the mother in the child ? 
 Was Rome, my father, built and peopled by 
 One sex ? The very marble of your ruins 
 Looks masculine. In heart I roam about them ; 
 But wheresoe'er my female soul peers in — 
 Even to the temple courts — some bearded image 
 Gives privilege. Doth Salique law entail 
 The heritage of glory ? Is there nothing. 
 Nothing, my father, in the work of freedom 
 For woman's hand to do ? 
 
 A long colloquy follows ; Santo accepts her 
 services, and we have the result of it all in 
 Scene IV. Francesca is alone, and in her soli- 
 loquy she subtly and tenderly reveals a woman's 
 undevotion to abstractions, and her love for 
 Santo. 
 
 And thou ! Country ! 
 Thou stem and awful god, of which my reason 
 Preaches infallibly, but which no sense 
 Bears witness to — I would thou hadst a shape.
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 195 
 
 It might be dwarf, defonned, maimed, — anything, 
 So it was thine ; and it would stand to me 
 For beauty. And my soul should wait on it, 
 And I would train my fancies all about it, 
 Till, growing to its fashion, and most nurtured 
 With smiles and tears, they strengthened into love. 
 But, Santo, this indefinite dim presence 
 I cannot worship. O thou dear Apostle ! 
 O what a patriot could Frances ca be 
 If thou wert Rome ! 
 
 * * * «- 
 
 Heart, have all thy will ! 
 Santo, I love thee ! love thee ! love thee ! love thee ! 
 Santo, I love thee ! O, thou wild word love ! 
 Thou bird broke loose ! I could say on and on. 
 And feel existence but to speak and hear. 
 Santo, I love thee ! Hear, Francesca loves thee ! 
 Santo, I love thee ! O, my heart, my heart, 
 My heart — thou Arab mad with desert thirst 
 In sight of water. 
 
 Immediately after this, Ceco, a friend, ap- 
 proaches and informs Francesca that Santo has 
 been taken prisoner by the Austrians, and is sen- 
 tenced to be shot at dawn. What follows reads 
 like a passage from the old masters of the 
 English drama. Francesca shows a poniard. 
 
 Ceco, 
 Tell me ; tell all, ah Ceco — nay, look here. 
 In the moonlight — Saints ! I can use it ! 
 Ceco. Strange 
 
 Wild girl, how ? Knovvest thou not as well as I
 
 196 5 YDNE Y DOBELL. 
 
 Vittorio preaching to some Milanese 
 
 Who would be patriots if they knew but how, 
 
 Spent precious hours in which the German foe 
 
 Slipt from the snare ? Whereat brave Roderigo— 
 
 A gallant sword — the greatest libertine 
 
 In Milan— seized him. In the castle dungeon 
 
 He lies since noon, and with the coming dawn 
 
 Dies. 
 
 Francesca. Dies, dies— who dies ? Pray you, friend, 
 say on ; 
 I am not wont to wander. 
 
 This is well ! 
 That last waltz spent me. Let me see, what gallant 
 Danced young Francesca down ? Nay, he'll boast rarely ! 
 Yet it seems long ago — long, long ago. 
 Such dreamless sleep ! Thou melancholy moon, 
 What ! have I caught my death damp of the dews ? 
 Death, — death — ah ! — 
 A gallant sword — the greatest libertine 
 
 In Milan?— yes, yes, — Roderigo, — yes — 
 
 He lies since noon, ay, in the castle dungeon, 
 
 And with the dawn — no, no, thou pitiless sun ! 
 
 Thou durst not rise ! oh sea, if thou hast waves, 
 
 Quench him ! 
 
 A gallant sword — the greatest libertine 
 
 In Milan — ah — the greatest libertine? 
 
 Who says I am not fair ? Ye gods ! I curse you : 
 
 Why do ye tempt me ? 
 
 It is over Ceco : 
 
 Ceco, I tell thee it is past, is past. 
 
 Santo is free. Look thou that horses wait 
 
 Near the east gate by sunrise. 
 
 In the next scene we are introduced to a 
 number of students and burghers in the common
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 197 
 
 room, discussing the news of the day — notably, 
 the rescue of this monk by Francesca. 
 
 Lelio. At midnight — 
 
 (Count Grassi's child liath a fair face). 
 
 Several. At midnight 
 
 Count Grassi's child hath a fair face ! Fie, Lelio ; 
 Why, what a traitor art thou ! 
 
 Lelio. Attend, I say ! 
 
 Count Rossi's lewdness is a proverb — 
 
 Several {pour badiner). Hold, 
 Lelio, for pity — there are bachelors here — 
 We are not all companions in misfortune ! 
 P'or pity Lelio ! 
 
 Lelio. You that shout for pity. 
 
 If you be Pity's followers, do her now 
 Your best allegiance. Good friends, I, her quaestor, 
 Claim tribute for her. A few tears will pay it. 
 Listen. The young Francesca, at the price • 
 
 Of her fair body, bought the captive's life ; 
 The priest is free. Do not cry out. Young Rossi 
 Craved instant payment. She, in her superb 
 High loveliness, whose every look enhanced 
 The ransom, sent him from her, glad to grant 
 Another maiden hour for prayer and tears. 
 Francesca wore a poniard. She is now 
 A maid for ever. 
 
 Hostess (to one standing by). How is that, sir ? 
 
 Student {aside. ) Hush ! 
 
 Dead. 
 
 The reader capable of appreciating beauty 
 passion, pathos, cannot fail to recognise all these 
 in the foregoing extracts ; and the same high
 
 198 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 
 
 qualities distinguish the other dramatic scenes. 
 At the close, the monk, tried by court-martial, 
 is condemned to be shot ; and beholds above 
 the heads of the Austrian platoon, drawn out for 
 his execution, the vision of a United Italy — the 
 dream of so many martyrs. 
 
 "Balder" appeared some years after the pub- 
 lication of the " Roman," and was not nearly so 
 well received by the critics. In truth, the gentle- 
 men of the press did not seem to know very 
 well what to make of this new candidate for 
 their suffrages ; and as abuse of the book wks 
 easier than laborious inquiries into its purport 
 and meaning, it was abused more vigorously and 
 universally than almost any other poetical effort 
 of our time. And it must at once be admitted 
 that "Balder" is very singular, puzzling, and 
 obscure. It lacks the action, rapidity, and 
 healthy human freshness of the " Roman." Nor 
 is it written in the same vivid, simple English. 
 The actors are few — Balder, a poet ; Amy, his 
 wife ; Dr Pmd, a medical man ; an artist ; a ser- 
 vant — these are all. There is no action in it ; 
 and with the exception of Scene XXIV., in which 
 the poet and his wife pass out into the fields, the 
 whole tragedy transacts itself in-doors. Balder is
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 1 99 
 
 continually writing or musing in his study, and 
 continually through the open door comes the 
 voice of Amy — Balder musing on his coming 
 poetic greatness, to which Nature had consented, 
 and the elements had set their seals — Amy 
 wailing of loneliness, of the departure of love, of 
 her dead child, of stagnant days and nights, and 
 madness creeping nearer and nearer. There is 
 the hard, selfish soliloquy of the proud, unami- 
 able man, alternating with the sigh of the 
 broken-hearted woman and the sound of her 
 falling tears. The book is designed to show 
 how fatally the egotism of genius clouds and 
 dwarfs the moral nature ; how, in the fierce thirst 
 for power, love dies out, and the man is left 
 with the strength of an archangel and the heart- 
 lessness and loneliness of a devil. But the book 
 is far too long, and the lesson might have been 
 enforced after some less painful fashion. Amys 
 tortures are lingering and long-drawn-out ; she 
 is slowly broken on the wheel, as it were. Balder 
 himself is fretful, unsocial, incomprehensible, 
 and a bit of a prig as well. His communings 
 are with himself alone. At his open window, 
 or at his study-table, he will talk by the 
 hour about his feelings ; his ambitions ; of " his
 
 200 5 YDNE Y DOB ELL. 
 
 having struck ofif one from the weary score 
 of human tasks ;" of his intention to make "his 
 staff the solar centre of creation ; " and of his 
 " early-planned, long-meditated, and slowly-writ- 
 ten epic." He is a monstrosity, and that most 
 detestable of all monstrosities — polite, silvery- 
 tongued as Belial — who will never get into a 
 healthy human anger with any one ; who will 
 subtilize, argue, give a thousand exquisite rea- 
 sons for everything, and, having made up his 
 mind beforehand, will take his own way in the 
 end. He will not get angry with you ; he will 
 sublimely pity you like a god. He may be 
 cruel, but he is always pleasant of speech. Of 
 Balder one does not know what to think, — one 
 cannot conceive what motives actuate him, or 
 forecast his conduct for a moment ; he is utterly 
 and hatefully inexplicable : and when at the 
 close, like some rudderless ship, whose course is 
 a series of accidents, he drifts into murder, or ap- 
 pears about to drift into it, you read on in a sort 
 of stupid protesting bewilderment. Altogether, 
 "Balder" is one of the most painful of books. 
 There is in it an atmosphere of stagnant, formless 
 woe, a crude misty miseiy, a selfishness that 
 might be felt. In reading it }-ou grope, as it
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 201 
 
 were, through some solid, stifling gloom. And 
 yet if any one would form a just estimate of the 
 power and originality of Mr Dobell's genius, of 
 the swift-cleaving character of his intellect, to 
 this book he must come and endure its pain. 
 With all its gloom and horror, I do not know 
 where else you will meet such sudden, unexpected, 
 exquisite sweetness ; such radiant sunniness of 
 nature ; such lovely lyrical trills, like the carol 
 of a bird from the blossomed apple-tree in the 
 orchard, heard through the silence of a house in 
 which a dead man is lying ; such strokes of sharp 
 pathos at which the printed page disappears to 
 slowly glimmer back. Out of the heavy sur- 
 rounding gloom Amy breaks into sudden song : 
 
 Then came the cowslip 
 
 Like a dancer in the fair. 
 
 She spread her little mat of green, 
 
 And on it danced she. 
 
 With a fillet bound about her brow, 
 
 A fillet round her happy brow, 
 
 A golden fillet round her brow, 
 
 And rubies in her hair. 
 
 There is nothing in Marlow, Webster, or 
 Dekker, more frightful than the close of this 
 book. Balder is reading a scroll, and talking to 
 himself of his "unthought of glory;" Amy rises
 
 202 SYDNEY DOBELL. 
 
 suddenly, snatches the scroll from his hand, 
 and throws it out of the open window into the 
 moat. 
 
 Amy. Glory? see! 
 
 Can it light up that pit down where I dwell 
 Out of the light of day and of the stars ? 
 Out of the light o' the grave : — Ay, the dull earth 
 Below the dead is not so black with night 
 But the great day shall stir it ! Is it well 
 That the dull earth bQ.low the dead hath life 
 And I am dark for ever ? Is that well ? 
 Is that well, husband ? Husband, is it well ? 
 
 yes, thy glory ; yes — he must have glory; 
 Yes, he must have his glory ; he can stand 
 All day in the sun, but he must have his glorj' ! 
 He has walked here up in the sunshine world, 
 He has been in the wind and the sweet rain. 
 
 And none cried, " Upset the cup o' the honey time, 
 
 Upset the cup o' the honey time," 
 
 And I am empty and dry. 
 
 « * * ♦ 
 
 1 am his wife ! This is my murderer ! 
 Make way, make way, this is a murderer ! 
 
 I am in hell, slain, lost, robbed, murdered, mad. 
 He did it, he ! 
 
 Balder. He knows it. 
 
 Amy. Mad, mad, mad ! 
 
 [Sinkitrg in his arms in a swoon.) 
 
 Balder. Now, now, my soul ! it must be ere she wake, 
 I will bear this alone ; she shall not know 
 The hand that strikes — This hand ! Nor man nor fiend 
 Would do thee harm but me! Now — now — yet O 
 That it must be now ! That it had been while 
 The fire of madness burned her, and she swelled
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 20 • 
 
 And blackened like a burning house — once house, 
 Now but a house in flames. 
 
 • • * * 
 
 {Begins to divest her.) 
 Heaving breast, 
 How oft have I undone thy weeds as now, 
 And very softly, very silently, 
 As now — and not more tenderly — no, not 
 More tenderly — no, on thy bridal night, 
 No, not more tenderly ! Bui oh, you heavens, 
 Wherefore and wherefore ? 
 
 Here under her bosom 
 It cannot fail her. Hide thee, hide thee. Heart, 
 Poor fluttering bird, why wilt thou stir the lilies? 
 Dost thou not know me, who I am ! Soft, soft ; 
 Thou hast so often struggled in mine arms 
 Asleep, and I have wakened thee with kisses, 
 I pray thee do not struggle now, my child, 
 I cannot rouse thee from this dream. 
 
 O God, 
 If she should clasp her hands upon her breast 
 And moan ! If she should feel through this thin trance 
 The cold steel ere it pierce, and call on me 
 For help ! — but I will hold thee fast, my child — 
 F'ast in these arms, altho' thou start and cry — 
 And shield thee from myself ! If I strike ill 
 The first stroke, and she wake and strive for life ; 
 If she should ope her eyes but once too late, 
 And go forth to believe for ever more 
 I struck unkindly — 
 
 {T/iraivs a kerchief over her face. ) 
 No, she shall not see me, — 
 And now thy living face is gone for ever. 
 And I have murdered thee before thy time. 
 Nor God nor demon could have wrung f'rom me
 
 204 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 
 
 This moment, the last moment, only thou, 
 O, only thou — 
 
 ^^Frantically lifts the kerchief. ) 
 Amy, Thou there, all there! 
 
 Help me, my child. Ay, look so beautiful, 
 'Tis well ; if this be heaven, this is not 
 To kill thee — Now. 
 
 The power of this is indisputable, but how it 
 all comes about, how it evolves itself out of the 
 body of the work, is not a little obscure. 
 
 "England in Time of War" is Mr Dobell's 
 latest work, and it is in many respects his home- 
 liest, simplest, and most delightful. There is no- 
 thing of the enormous egotism of "Balder" about 
 it, because, from the nature of the cases, it deals 
 with a variety of characters, and touches on a 
 multitude of interests. The book is mainly com- 
 posed of lyrics, but they are dramatic lyrics ; 
 only on one or two occasions the writer speaks 
 in his proper person, and an attempt is made to 
 give expression to every rank of English society 
 in its relation to the war then raging. In carry- 
 ing out his idea, the writer necessarily passes 
 from cot to castle, from milkmaid to merchant. 
 The war lies at the centre of each of these 
 lyrics, but there is remarkable variety in the 
 people who utter them. There is the market-
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 205 
 
 wife, who mixes Bible and newspaper, and who 
 imagines that the armies of Israel fou^jht with 
 bayonets, and wore scarlet ; the merriment of 
 the recruits' ball ; the wail of the mad woman, 
 whose lover has been slain ; the sorely-wounded 
 officer slowly becoming convalescent, as he is 
 wheeled through the sunshine and over the 
 primroses of English spring. In very many of 
 these little songs there is an abounding free- 
 flowing music, a light, airy gracefulness of touch, 
 a sunny playfulness at times which is almost 
 humour, a homeliness and sincerity of pathos 
 which needs no fine words. Some of the 
 humblest, dealing with milkmaids and broken- 
 hearted, dying farmers, are more poetical than 
 the ambitious soliloquies in " Balder." 
 
 Here is an exquisite lyric, which has all the 
 charm, simplicity, and colour of an old ballad : 
 
 The murmur of the mourning ghost 
 
 That keeps the shadowy kine, 
 O, Keith of Ravelston 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 Ravelston, Ravelston, 
 
 The merry patii that leads 
 Down the golden morning hill 
 
 And thro' the silver meads. 
 
 Ravelston, Ravelston, 
 
 The stile beneath the tree,
 
 2o6 5 YDNE Y D OB EL L . 
 
 The maid that kept her mother's kine, 
 The song that sang she ! 
 
 She sang her song, she kept her kine, 
 
 She sat beneath the thorn 
 When Andrew Keith of Ravelston 
 
 Rode thro' the Monday morn. 
 
 His henchmen sing, his hawk -bells ring, 
 
 His belted jewels shine ! 
 O, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 Year after year, where Andrew came 
 Comes evening down the glade. 
 
 And still there sits a moonshine ghost 
 Where sat the sunshine maid. 
 
 Her misty hair is faint and fair. 
 She keeps the shadowy kine ; 
 
 O, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 I lay my hand upon the stile, 
 
 The stile is lone and cold, 
 The bumie that goes babbling by 
 
 Says nought that can be told. 
 
 Yet, stranger ! here, from year to year, 
 She keeps her shadowy kine ; 
 O, Keith of Ravelston, 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 Step out three steps, where Andrew stood- 
 Why blanch thy cheeks for fear? 
 
 The ancient stile is not alone, 
 'Tis not the burn I hear !
 
 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 207 
 
 She makes lier immemorial moan, 
 
 She keeps her shadowy kine; 
 O, Keith of Ravelston, 
 
 The sorrows of thy line ! 
 
 In this little poem, arc not the palpable and 
 the impalpable, the past and the present, subtly 
 intermixed like day and night in twilight ? 
 
 If a man's literary success be judged by the 
 number of editions his works have reached, and 
 the number of readers he has secured, then, 
 when compared with many of his contemporaries, 
 Mr Dobell's literary success does not seem con- 
 siderable. And, unquestionably, every sensible 
 man must consider that popularity is an import- 
 ant element in literary success. If you sing a 
 song in public, and if no one will listen to your 
 singing, as a public singer you have most certainly 
 failed. If you say that you don't care whether 
 people listen or not, then why sing in public 
 at all 1 why not confine your melodious utter- 
 ance to your private apartment, and dedicate it 
 merely to your own delight } The " Roman " and 
 " Balder" have reached second editions ; "England 
 in Time of War" is yet in its first : Mr Tupper is 
 at present advertising the Bijou Edition of " Pro- 
 verbial Philosophy," being something like the
 
 2o8 5 YDNE V DOBELL. 
 
 hundred and twentieth thousand. I do not put 
 these two statements together to point a barren 
 sneer at Mr Tapper — that has been a great deal 
 too much the custom of late, and many of the 
 writers who laugh the loudest at " Proverbial 
 Philosophy" would have been extremely puzzled 
 to write it — but I bring them together to 
 show that poetry of the highest class may not 
 find a public, while poetry of a far lower grade 
 is sometimes enormously successful in that re- 
 spect. But then, if devotedness of attachment is 
 in these matters to be considered and valued, 
 the love of the six readers of the unpopular poet 
 may outweigh the love of a hundred readers of 
 the popular one. In the old Scottish days " The 
 King over the water" was pledged far seldomer; 
 but, when pledged, with a thousand times more 
 enthusiasm than was ever King George. In 
 the palmy days of Byron and the Edinhirgh 
 Review, Wordsworth was the least read, but the 
 most intensely loved poet in England. It is 
 curious how unpopular books are loved by 
 the men who like them, and find in them 
 spiritual sustenance. Between the reading of 
 such books and of more popular ones, there is 
 all the difference between dining at an ordinary
 
 SYDNEY DOBELL. 209 
 
 and in a private room with select friends. The 
 " Phantastes " of Mr George MacDonald is a 
 book but little talked about ; but I happen to 
 know some six men to whom admiration for that 
 most exquisite of modern prose poems is a sort 
 of bond of union. Mr Dobcll has an audience, 
 not so large as many, but more devoted than 
 most. Whether he is to the full aware of that 
 devotedness, I cannot say ; but I am certain, 
 knowing his serious and noble nature, that 
 whether his books are popular or the reverse, 
 is to him a matter of no very considerable mo- 
 ment. He is one of the few men who can say, 
 and that, too, without the slightest suspicion of 
 cant or insincerity, that having done his work 
 faithfully and well — this being the matter in 
 which he has strict personal concern — he is not 
 too anxious as to what reception his work may 
 meet with — that being more specially the con- 
 cern of others. 
 
 o
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 iVERY now and again it is asserted that 
 our literature is being destroyed by 
 the periodicals. Some hold that, under 
 their baneful influence, we are losing all con- 
 cision and polish of style, as well as all capa- 
 city for serious thought. Others, admitting that 
 there may be as much intellectual wealth current 
 now as there was forty or a hundred years ago, 
 contend that, as the intellectual wealth of the 
 former time was represented by a thousand gold 
 coins, whilst that of the present day circulates in 
 a million copper ones, the unprecedented distri- 
 bution of pieces — the sordid material of which 
 they are composed, the excess of bulk and 
 weifrht — form serious deductions from the value 
 actually in possession. The assertion that 
 magazines and reviews are at present hurting 
 literature, is one which, in virtue of being half 
 truth and half falsehood, is likely to enjoy a 
 long life. You cannot trample it quite out, on
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 211 
 
 account of the truth resident in it : you have an 
 uneasy suspicion of its falsehood even while 
 asserting it most loudly. Every household in 
 the country has its periodical. Henry of Na- 
 varre longed for the time when every French- 
 man should have a hen in his pot. That, he 
 conceived a better sign of the prosperity of a 
 country than certain big feasts in certain big 
 castles. The magazines bring literature into 
 every home, just as aqueduct and pipe bring the 
 water of Loch Katrine into the homes of the 
 Glasgow citizens. It is quite true that the 
 water occasionally tastes of iron, and wears a 
 rusty stain ; quite true that a perfectly pure 
 draught may always be had at the legendary 
 lake in the shadow of the hills ; but the water is 
 flowing in every house, and that, after all, is the 
 important matter. 
 
 And, to carry out the illustration, the water 
 is often as pure in the basin of the citizen as 
 beneath the trembling sedges that the wild duck 
 loves. The fact that so many of our books — and 
 so many of our best books, too — are reprints from 
 periodicals, proves that not only are periodicals 
 extensively read, but that they absorb much 
 of our best thinking and writing. The best
 
 212 ESS A Y/S TS, OLD A ND NE IV. 
 
 written magazine naturally attracts the largest 
 number of readers ; and this number of readers 
 enables it to maintain its level of excellence, 
 and to draw to its service the best men who 
 may from time to time arise. When we say 
 that our best periodicals are extensively read, 
 we are simply saying that our best periodicals 
 are attractive. No man who wishes to be amused 
 will pay his money for dulness. No man who 
 appreciates style will habitually peruse what 
 cannot minister to his literary delight. The 
 people who purchase the Conihill may be pre- 
 sumed to be tolerably contented with the litera- 
 ture of the Co7ni]iill. Their ordinary thinking is 
 not quite up to the level of the thinking of the 
 writers in that serial ; the articles it contains 
 occasionally present them with a new fact, or 
 with a new view of a fact already known ; and 
 their ordinary conversation or correspondence 
 does not exhibit the play of fancy and aptness 
 of illustration which disting-uish the writings of 
 Mr Thackeray and Mr Lewes. So long as 
 periodicals are read, we assume that they serve 
 a very important purpose — that they amuse, 
 instruct, and refine. Whenever they cease to 
 do so, they will die, as the "Annuals " did. Nor 
 
 I
 
 ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 213 
 
 does this same literature affect writers in any- 
 very disastrous way. It is frequently said that 
 periodical writing fritters away a man's intellec- 
 tual energy ; that, instead of concentrating him- 
 self on some congenial task, devoting a whole 
 lifetime to it, and leaving it as a permanent 
 possession of the race, a man is tempted to 
 write hastily, and without sufficient meditation ; 
 that, in fact, we have articles now, more or less 
 brilliant, whereas, under different circumstances, 
 we might have had books. All this kind of 
 conjecture is exceedingly unprofitable. Doubt- 
 less, under different circumstances, the results 
 of a man's working would have been different 
 more or less ; but it does not of necessity follow 
 that the results would have been more valuable. 
 A man's power in literature, as in everything 
 else, is best measured by his accomplishment, 
 just as his stature is best measured by his coffin. 
 The man who can beat his fellows in a ten-mile 
 race is likely to maintain his superiority in a 
 race for a shorter distance. It is a mistake to 
 suppose that a man's largest work, or the work 
 on which he has expended the greatest labour, 
 is on that account his best. Literary history is 
 full of instances to the contrary. When mental
 
 214 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 powers are equal, that is surest of immortality 
 which occupies the least space ; scattered forces 
 are then concentrated, like garden roses gathered 
 into one bouquet, or English beauty in the boxes 
 at the opera. Leisure and life-long devotion to 
 a task have often resulted in tediousness. Large 
 works are often too heavy for posterity to carry. 
 We have too many " Canterbury Tales." The 
 " Faery Queen " would be more frequently read 
 if it consisted of only one book, and Spenser's 
 fame would stand quite as high as it does. Milton's 
 poetical genius is as apparent in " Comus " and 
 " Lycidas " as in his great Epic, which most 
 people have thought too long, Addison's 
 " Essay in Westminster Abbey " is more valu- 
 able than his tragedy. Macaulay's Essays on 
 Clive and Warren Hastings are as brilliant, 
 powerful, and instructive as any single chapter 
 of his "History" — with the additional advan- 
 tage, that they can be read at a sitting. Certain 
 readers have been found to admire Wordsworth's 
 " We are Seven " more than the " Excursion." 
 Coleridge talked of spending fifteen years on 
 the construction of a great poem ; had he done 
 so, it is doubtful whether his reader would have 
 preferred it to the "Ancient Mariner." From all
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 215 
 
 this, it may be inferred that, if writers, instead 
 of " frittering themselves away " in periodicals, 
 had devoted themselves to the production of 
 important works, the world would not have 
 been much the wiser, and their reputations not 
 one Avhit higher. Besides, there are many men 
 more brilliant than profound — who have more 
 elan than persistence — who gain their victories, 
 like the Zouaves, by a rapid dash ; — and these do 
 their best in periodicals. These the immediate 
 presence of the reader excites, as the audience 
 the orator, the crowded pit the actor. Jerrold 
 sparkles like a fire-fly through the tropic night ; 
 Hood, in that tragic subject which his serious 
 fancy loved, emits, like the glow-worm, a melan- 
 choly ray. But they could not shine for any 
 continuous period, and had the wisdom not to 
 attempt it. Are they to blame that they did 
 not write long books to prove themselves dull 
 fellows } It is of no use to cry out against 
 the present state of things in literature. The 
 magazines are here, and they have been pro- 
 duced by a great variety of causes. They 
 demand certain kinds of literary ware ; but 
 whether the wares are valuable or the reverse, 
 depends entirely upon the various workmen. It
 
 2 1 6 ESS A V/S TS, OLD AND NE IV. 
 
 is to be hoped, if magazine writers possess a 
 specialty, that they will stick to their specialty, 
 and work it out faithfully — that no one will go 
 out of his way, like Mr Dickens, when he wrote 
 "The Child's History of England," or Mr Ruskin, 
 when he addressed himself to the discussion of 
 questions in political economy. 
 
 To the young writer, the magazine or review 
 has distinct advantages. In many instances he 
 can serve in the house of a literary noble, as 
 the squire in the fourteenth century served in 
 the house and under the eye of the territorial 
 noble. He may model himself on an excellent 
 pattern, and receive knighthood from his master 
 as the reward of good conduct. If otherwise 
 circumstanced, — if, following no special banner, 
 he writes under the cover of the anonymous, 
 and is unsuccessful, — he may retire without 
 being put to public shame. In the arena of 
 the magazines he can try his strength, pit him- 
 self against his fellows, find out his intellectual 
 weight and power, gradually acquire confidence 
 in himself, or arrive at the knowledge of his weak- 
 ness — a result not less valuable if more rarely 
 attained. If he is overthrown in the lists, no 
 one but himself is the worse ; if he distinguishes
 
 £SSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 217 
 
 himself, it is a little unreasonable to expect him 
 to keep his visor down when roses* are shower- 
 ing upon him from applauding balconies. A 
 man eminently successful in the magazines 
 may fairly be forgiven for rushing to a reprint. 
 Actors who make a hit at Drury Lane, almost 
 immediately make a tour of the provinces. A 
 reprint is to the author what a provincial tour is 
 to the actor If he is an amusing writer, people 
 welcome him in his new shape with the grati- 
 tude which people always entertain for those 
 who have amused them ; if he is a great writer, 
 people desire to shake hands with him, as the 
 elector is proud to shake hands with the candi- 
 date whom he has elected as his representative. 
 And, indeed, the magazinists may fairly be 
 compared to the House of Commons — a mixed 
 audience, representing every class — stormy, 
 tumultuous, where great questions are being 
 continually discussed ; an assembly wherein 
 men rise to be leaders of parties ; out of which 
 men are selected to rule distant provinces ; out 
 of which, also, every now and again, a member 
 is translated to the Upper House, where he takes 
 his seat among his peers, in a serener atmosphere, 
 and among loftier traditions.
 
 2i8 ESSA VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 During the last year or two there has been a 
 large number of reprints from the magazines, con- 
 sisting chiefly of essays and novels. With the 
 latter, at present, we have no concern. The essay 
 has always been a favourite literary form with 
 magazine writers ; and in the volumes before 
 us we have specimens of various kinds. Of the 
 most delightful kind of essay-writing, that of 
 personal delineation, which chronicles moods, 
 which pursues vagrant lines of thought, Mon- 
 taigne is the earliest, and, as yet, the greatest 
 example. Montaigne is as egotistical in his 
 essays as a poet in his lyrics. His subject is 
 himself, his thinkings, his surroundings of every 
 kind. He did not write to inform us about the 
 events of his own time, though it was stirring 
 enough ; about his contemporaries, although he 
 mingled much in society, and knew the best men 
 of his day ; about the questions which stirred 
 the hearts and perplexed the intellects of the 
 sixteenth century Frenchmen, although he was 
 familiar with them all, and had formed his own 
 opinions on them ; these he puts aside, to discourse 
 of his chateau, his page, his perfumed gloves; — to 
 discuss love, friendship, experience, and the like, 
 in his own way, half in banter, half in earnest.
 
 ESS A V/S TS, OL D A XD NE W. 219 
 
 Consequently, we have the fullest information 
 regarding himself, if we have but little regarding 
 anything else. Of course, Essays written after 
 this fashion cannot, from the very nature of 
 them, be expected to shape themselves on any 
 established literary form. They do not require 
 to have a middle, beginning, or end. They are 
 a law unto themselves. They are shaped by 
 impulse and whim, as emotion shapes the lyric. 
 Montaigne wanders about at his own will, and 
 has as many jerks and turnings as a swallow 
 on the wing. He seems to have the strangest 
 notions of continuity, and sometimes his titles 
 have no relation to his subject-matter, and look 
 as oddly at the top of his page as the sign- 
 board of the Bible-merchant over the door of a 
 lottery-office. He assails miracles in his " Essay 
 on Criples," and he wanders into the strangest 
 regions in his Essay "Upon some Verses of 
 Virgil." In his most serious moods he brings 
 illustrations from the oddest quarters, and tells 
 such stories as we might suppose Squire Western 
 to have delighted in, sitting with a neighbouring 
 squire over the wine, after his sister and Sophia 
 had withdrawn. These Essays, full of the keenest 
 insight, the profoundest melancholy, continually
 
 2Z0 ESS A VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 playing with death as Hamlet plays with 
 Yorick's skull, whimsical, humorous, full of the 
 flavour of a special character — philosopher and 
 eccentric Gascon gentleman in one — are, in the 
 best sense of the term, artistic. There is a 
 meaning in the trifling, wisdom in the seeming 
 folly, a charm in the swallow-like gyrations. 
 All the incongruous elements — the whimsicality 
 and the worldly wisdom, the melancholy, the 
 humour and sense of enjoyment, the trifling over 
 articles of attire and details of personal habit, 
 the scepticism which questioned everything, the 
 piety and the coarseness — mix and mingle some- 
 how, and become reconciled in the alembic of 
 personal character. Oppositions, incongruities, 
 contradictions, taken separately, are mere lines 
 and scratches ; when brought together, by some 
 mysterious attraction, they unite to produce a 
 grave and thoughtful countenance — that of Mon- 
 taigne. He explains the Essays — the Essays 
 explain him. Of course the writer's remoteness 
 from the great French world, his freedom from 
 the modern conditions of publication and criti- 
 cism, his sense of distance from his reader — if 
 ever he should possess one — contributed, to a 
 large extent, to make himself his own audience.
 
 ESSA YISTS, OLD AND NEW. 221 
 
 He wrote as freely in his chateau at Montaigne, 
 as Alexander Selkirk could have done in his 
 solitary island. Had there been upon him the 
 sense of a reading public and of critical eyes, he 
 could not have delivered himself up so com- 
 pletely into the guidance of whim. As it is, the 
 Essays remain among the masterpieces of the 
 world. He is the first of egotists, because, while 
 continually writing about himself, he was writing 
 about what was noble and peculiar. No other 
 literary egotist had ever so good a subject, and 
 then his style is peculiar as him.self In his 
 Essays, he continually piques the reader ; every 
 now and then more is meant than meets the 
 eye ; every now and then a great deal less. He 
 plays at hide-and-seek with his reader round his 
 images and illustrations. In reading Montaigne, 
 we always think we are finding him out. 
 
 When the Essay became a popular literary 
 form in England, the conditions of things had 
 altogether changed since Montaigne's day. The 
 Frenchman was a solitary man, with but few 
 books except the classics, given to self-com- 
 munion, constantly writing to please himself, 
 constantly mastered by whim, constantly, as it 
 were, throwing the reins upon the neck of im-
 
 222 £SSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 pulse. He had no public, and consequently he 
 did not stand in awe of one. The country was 
 convulsed, martyrs were consumed at the stake, 
 country-houses were sacked, the blood of St 
 Bartholomew had been spilt, the white plume 
 of Navarre was shining in the front of battle. 
 Amid all this strife and turmoil, the melancholy 
 and middle-aged gentleman sat in his chateau 
 at Montaigne, alone with his dreams. No one 
 disturbed him ; he disturbed no one. He lived 
 for himself and for thought. When Steele and 
 Addison appeared as English Essayists, they 
 appeared under totally different circumstances. 
 The four great English poets had lived and died. 
 The Elizabethan drama, which had arisen in 
 Marlow, had set in Shirley. The comedy of 
 Wicherley and Congreve, in which pruriency 
 has become phosphorescent, was in possession 
 of the stage. Dryden had taken immortal ven- 
 geance on his foes. Fragments of Butler's wit 
 sparkled like grains of salt in the conversation 
 of men of fashion. English literature was already 
 rich ; there was a whole world of books and of 
 accumulated ideas to work upon. Then a public 
 had arisen ; there was the " town," idle, rich, 
 eagerly inquiring after every new thing, most
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 223 
 
 anxious to be amused. Montaigne was an 
 egotist, because he had Httle but himself to 
 write about ; certainly he had nothing nearly so 
 interesting. He pursued his speculations as he 
 liked, because he had no one to interfere with 
 him. He was actor and audience in one. The 
 English Essayists, on the other hand, had the 
 English world to act upon. They had its leisure 
 to amuse, its follies to satirise ; its books, music, 
 and pictures, its public amusements, its whole 
 social arrangements, to comment upon, to laugh 
 at, to praise. As a consequence, their Essays 
 are not nearly so instructive as Montaigne's, 
 although they are equally sparkling and amus- 
 ing. We are introduced to a fashionable world, 
 to beaux with rapiers and lace ruffles, and 
 belles with patches on their cheeks ; there are 
 drums and card-tables, and sedan-chairs and 
 links. The satire in the " Spectator " is conven- 
 tional ; it concerns itself with the circumference 
 of a lady's hoops, or the air with which a cox- 
 comb carries his cocked hat beneath his arm. 
 The Essayists of the eighteenth century were 
 satirists of society, and of that portion of society 
 alone which sneered in the coffee-houses and 
 buzzed round the card-tables of the Metropolis.
 
 224 I^SSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 They did not deal with crimes, but with social 
 foibles ; they did not recognise passions in 
 that fashionable world ; they did not reverence 
 woman, they took off their hats and uttered 
 sparkling compliments to the "fair." Theirs 
 was a well-dressed world, and they liked it best 
 when seen by candle-light. They were fine 
 gentlemen, and they carried into literature their 
 fine-gentleman airs. They dressed carefully ; 
 and they were as careful of the dress of their 
 thoughts as of their persons. Their epigrams were 
 sharp and polished as their rapiers ; they said the 
 bitterest things in the most smiling way ; their 
 badinage was nothing if not gentlemanly. Satire 
 went about with a coloured plume of fancy in 
 his cap. They brought style to perfection. But 
 even then one could see that a change was 
 setting in. A poor gentleman down at Olney, 
 under the strong power of the world to come, 
 was feeding his hares, and writing poems of a 
 religious cast, yet with a wonderful fascination, as 
 if of some long-forgotten melody, haunting their 
 theological peculiarities, which drew many to 
 listen. Up from Ayrshire to Edinburgh came 
 Burns, with black, piercing eyes, with all his 
 songs about him, as if he had reft a county of 
 
 ^
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 225 
 
 the music of its groves ; in due time a whole 
 wild Paris was yelling round the guillotine where 
 noble heads were falling. Europe became a 
 battle-field ; a new name rose into the catalogue 
 of kings ; and when the Essayists of our own 
 century began to write, the world had changed, 
 and they had changed with it. 
 
 The Essayists who wrote in the early portion 
 of the present century — Lamb. Hazlitt, and 
 Hunt — are not only different from their pre- 
 decessors as regards mental character ; they 
 differ from them also in the variety of the sub- 
 jects that engaged their attention. And this dif- 
 ference arises not only from the greater number 
 of subjects attracting public interest in their 
 day, but also from the immensely larger audience 
 they had to address. They were not called 
 upon to write for the town, but for town and 
 country both. Society was reading in all its 
 ranks, and each rank had its special interests. 
 The Essayists' subject-matter had been vastly 
 enlarged ; great actors had trod the boards ; 
 great painters had painted ; the older poets had 
 come into fashion ; outside nature had again 
 reappeared in literature. The Essayist could 
 weave an allegory, or criticise, or describe, or
 
 226 £SSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 break a social enormity on the wheel, or explode 
 an ancient prejudice, with the certainty of always 
 finding a reader. Lamb, the most peculiarly 
 gifted of the three — who thought Fleet Street 
 worth all Arcadia — confined himself for the most 
 part to the Metropolis, its peculiar sights, its 
 beggars, its chimney-sweeps, its theatres, its old 
 actors, its book-stalls ; and on these subjects he 
 discourses with pathos and humour curiously 
 blended. For him the past had an irresistible 
 attraction ; he loved old books, old houses, old 
 pictures, old wine, old friends. His mind was 
 like a Tudor mansion, full of low-roofed, wain- 
 scoted rooms, with pictures on the walls of men 
 and women in antique garb ; of tortuous pas- 
 sages and grim crannies in which ghosts might 
 " lurk ; with a garden with plots of shaven grass, 
 and processions of clipped yews, and a stone dial 
 in the corner, with a Latin motto anent the 
 flight of time carved upon it, and a drowsy 
 sound of rooks heard sometimes from afar. He 
 sat at the India House with the heart of Sir 
 Thomas Browne beating beneath his sables. He 
 sputtered out puns among his friends from the 
 -saddest heart. He laughed that he might not 
 sonep. Misery, which could not make him a
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 227 
 
 cynic nor a misanthrope, made him a humorist. 
 And knowing, as now we all know from Serjeant 
 Talfourd, the tragic shadow which darkened his 
 home for years, one looks upon the portrait of 
 Elia with pity tempered with awe. Lamb ex- 
 tended the sphere of the Essay, not so much 
 because he dealt with subjects which till his 
 day had been untouched, but because he im- 
 ported into that literary form a fancy, humour, 
 and tenderness which resembled the fancy, 
 humour, and tenderness of no other writer. The 
 manifestations of these qualities were as personal 
 and peculiar as his expression of countenance, 
 the stutter in his speech, his habit of punning, 
 his love of black-letter and whisky-punch. His 
 Essays are additions to English literature, just 
 as Potosi silver was an addition to the wealth 
 of Europe, Whatever his subject, it becomes 
 interpenetrated by his pathetic and fanciful 
 humour, and is thereby etherealised — made 
 poetic. Some of his Essays have all the soft- 
 ness and remoteness of dreams. They are not 
 of the earth earthy. They are floating islands 
 asleep on serene shadows in a sea of humour. 
 The "Essay on Roast Pig" breathes a divine 
 aroma. The sentences hush themselves around
 
 228 ESSA VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 the youthful chimney-sweep — "the innocent 
 blackness," asleep in the nobleman's sheets — 
 as they might around the couch of the sleeping 
 Princess. Gone are all his troubles — the harsh 
 call of his master,, sooty knuckles rubbed into 
 tearful eyes, his brush, his call from the chimney- 
 top. Let the poor wretch sleep ! And then, 
 Lamb's method of setting forth his fancies is as 
 peculiar as the fancies themselves. He was a 
 modern man only by the accident of birth ; and 
 his style is only modern by the same accident. It 
 is full of the quaintest convolutions and doublings 
 back upon itself ; and ever and again a para- 
 graph is closed by a sentence of unexpected 
 rhetorical richness, like heavy golden fringe 
 depending from the velvet of the altar cover — 
 a trick which he learned from the " Religio 
 Medici," and the "Urn Burial." As a critic, 
 too. Lamb takes a high place. His " Essay on 
 the Genius of Hogarth " is a triumphant vindica- 
 tion of that master's claim to the highest place 
 of honour in British art; and. in it he sets 
 forth the doctrine, that a picture must not be 
 judged by externals of colour, nor by manipu- 
 lative dexterity — v^aluablc as these unques- 
 tionably are — but by the number and value of
 
 BSSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 229 
 
 the thoughts it contains; a doctrine which Mr 
 Ruskin has borrowed, and has used with results. 
 Leigh Hunt was a poet as well as an Essayist, 
 and he carried his poetic fancy with him into 
 prose, where it shone like some splendid bird of 
 the tropics among the sober-coated denizens of 
 the farm-yard. He loved the country ; but one 
 almost suspects that his love for the country 
 might be resolved into likings for cream, butter, 
 strawberries, sunshine, and hayswathes to tumble 
 in. If he did not, like Wordsworth, carry in his 
 heart the silence of wood and fell, he at all 
 events carried a gilly -flower jauntily in his 
 button-hole. He was neither a town poet and 
 essayist, nor a country poet and essayist ; he 
 was a mixture of both, — a suburban poet and 
 essayist. Above all places in the world, he 
 loved Hampstead. His Essays are gay and 
 gheerful as suburban villas, — the piano is touched 
 within, there are trees and flowers outside, but 
 the city is not far distant, prosaic interests are 
 ever intruding, visitors are constantly dropping 
 in. His Essays are not poetically conceived ; 
 they deal — with the exception of that lovely one 
 on the "Death of Little Children," whore the 
 fancy becomes serious as an angel, and wipes
 
 230 USSAY/STS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 the tears of mothers as tenderly away as an angel 
 could — with distinctly mundane and common- - 
 place matters ; but his charm is in this, that be 
 the subject what it may, immediately troops of 
 fancies search land and sea and the range of the 
 poets for its adornment — just as, in the old 
 English villages on May morning, shoals of 
 rustics went forth to the woods and brought 
 home hawthorns for the dressing of door and 
 window. Hunt is always cheerful and chatty. 
 He defends himself against the evils of life with 
 pretty thoughts. He believes that the world is 
 good, and that men and women are good too. 
 He would, with a smiling face, have offered a 
 flower to a bailiff in the execution of his duty, 
 and been both hurt and astonished if that func- 
 tionary had proved dead to its touching sugges- 
 tions. His Essays are much less valuable than 
 Lamb's, because they, are neither so peculiar, 
 nor do they touch the reader so deeply ; but 
 they are full of colour and wit. They resemble 
 the arbours we see in gardens — not at all the 
 kind of place one would like to spend a lifetime 
 in, but exceedingly pleasant to withdraw to for 
 an hour when the sun is hot and no duty is 
 pressing. He called one of his books, "A Book
 
 ESS A VIS TS, OLD AND NE W. 231 
 
 for the Parlour Window;" all his books arc for 
 the parlour window. 
 
 Hazlitt, if he lacked Lamb's quaintncss and 
 ethereal humour, and Hunt's fancifulncss, pos- 
 sessed a robust and passionate faculty which 
 gave him a distinct place in the literature of his 
 time. His feelings were keen and deep. The 
 French Revolution seemed to him — in common 
 with Southey, Wordsworth, and Coleridge — in 
 its early stages, an authentic angel rising with 
 a new morning for the race upon its forehead ; 
 and when disappointment came, and his friends 
 sought refuge in the old order of things, he, loyal 
 to his youthful hope, stood aloof, hating them 
 almost as renegades, and never ceasing to give 
 utterance to his despair. " I started in life with 
 the French Revolution," he tells us ; "and I have 
 lived, alas ! to see the end of it. My sun arose 
 with the first dawn of liberty, and I did not 
 think how soon both must set. We were strong 
 to run a race together, and I little dreamed that, 
 long before mine was set, the sun of liberty would 
 turn to blood, or sink once more in the night of 
 despotism. Since then, I confess, I have no 
 longer felt myself young, for with that my hopes 
 fell." This was the central bitterness in Hazlitt's
 
 232 ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 life ; but around it were grouped lesser and more 
 personal bitternesses. His early ambition was 
 to be a painter, and in that he failed. Coleridge 
 was the man whom he admired most in all the 
 world, in the light of whose genius he stood, like 
 an Arcadian shepherd in an Arcadian sunrise, full 
 of admiration — every sense absorbed in that of 
 sight ; and that genius he was fated to see coming 
 to nothing. Then he was headstrong, violent, 
 made many enemies, was the object of cruel criti- 
 cism ; his financial affairs were never prosperous, 
 and in domestic matters he is not understood to 
 have been happy. He was a troubled and exas- 
 perated man, and this exasperation is continually 
 breaking out in his writings. Deeply wounded 
 in early life, he carried the smart with him to his 
 death-bed. And in his Essays and other writings 
 it is almost pathetic to notice how he clings to 
 the peaceful images which the poets love ; how 
 he reposes in their restful lines; how he listens to 
 the bleating of the lamb in the fields of imagi- 
 nation. He is continually quoting Sidney's Arca- 
 dian image of the shepherd-boy under the shade, 
 piping as he would never grow old, — as if the 
 recurrence of the image to his memory brought 
 with it silence, sunshine, and waving trees.
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NFAV. 233 
 
 Hazlitt had a strong metaphysical turn ; he was 
 an acute critic in poetry and art, but he wrote 
 too much, and he wrote too hurriedly. When at 
 his best, his style is excellent, concise, sinewy — 
 laying open the stubborn thought as the sharp 
 ploughshare the glebe ; while, at other times, it 
 wants edge and sharpness, and the sentences 
 resemble the impressions of a seal which has 
 been blunted with too frequent use. His best 
 Essays are, in a sense, autobiographical, because 
 in them he recalls his enthusiasms and the pas- 
 sionate hopes on which he fed his spirit. The 
 Essay entitled " My First Acquaintance with 
 Poets " is full of memorable passages. To 
 Hazlitt, Coleridge was then a divinity. They 
 walked from Wem to Shrewsbury on a winter 
 day, Coleridge talking all the while ; and Hazlitt 
 recalls it after the lapse of years : "A sound was 
 in my ears as of a syren's song : I was stunned, 
 startled with it as from deep sleep ; but I had no 
 notion then that I should ever be able to express 
 my admiration to others in motley imagery and 
 quaint allusion, till the light of his genius shone 
 into my soul like the sun's rays glittering in the 
 puddles of the road. ... My soul has indeed 
 remained in its original bondage — dark, obscure,
 
 234 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 with longings infinite and unsatisfied ; my heart, 
 shut up in the prison-house of this rude clay, 
 has never found, nor will it ever find, a heart to 
 speak to ; but that my understanding also did 
 not remain dumb and brutish, or at length found 
 a language to express itself, I owe to Coleridge." 
 This testimony, from a man like Hazlitt, to the 
 worth of Coleridge's talk, is interesting, and 
 contrasts strangely with Carlyle's description of 
 it, when, in later years, the silvery-haired sage 
 looked down on the smoky London from High- 
 gate. Nor is it without its moral. Talk which, 
 in his early day, came like a dawn upon another 
 mind, illuminating dark recesses, kindling in- 
 tellectual life, revealing itself to itself — became, 
 through personal indulgence and the will's in- 
 firmity, mere swathes of glittering mist in which 
 men were lost. Hazlitt's other Essay, on the 
 " Pleasures of Painting," is quite as personal as the 
 one to which we have referred, and is perhaps the 
 finest thing he has written. It is full of the love 
 and the despair of art. He tells how he was en- 
 gaged fgr blissful days in painting a portrait of 
 his father ; how he imitated, as best he could, the 
 rough texture of the skin, and the blood circu- 
 lating beneath ; how, when it was finished, he
 
 ESS A Y/S TS, OLD AND NE W. 2 3 5 
 
 sat on a chair opposite, and with wild thoughts 
 enough in his head, looked at it through the long 
 evenings ; how, with a throbbing heart, he sent it 
 to the Exhibition, and saw it hung up there by 
 the side of a portrait "of the Honourable Mr 
 Skeffington (now Sir George)." Then he charac- 
 teristically tells us that he finished the portrait 
 on the same day that brought news of the battle 
 of Austerlitz : " I walked out in the afternoon, 
 and, as I returned, saw the evening star set 
 over a poor man's cottage, with other thoughts 
 and feelings than I shall ever have again. O for 
 the revolution of the great Platonic year, that 
 these times might come over again ! I could 
 sleep out the three hundred and sixty-five thou- 
 sand intervening years very contentedly." He 
 was a passionate, melancholy, keen-feeling, and 
 disappointed man ; and those portions of his 
 Essays are the least valuable where his passion 
 and his disappointment break out into .spleen or 
 irritability, just as those portions are the mo.st 
 valuable where bitter feelings are transfused 
 into poetry by memory and imagination. With 
 perhaps more intellectual, certainly with more 
 passionate force, than cither Lamb or Hunt, Haz- 
 litt's Essays are, as a whole, inferior to theirs ;
 
 236 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 but nearly all of them contain passages, which 
 not only they, but any man, might be proud to 
 have written. 
 
 These men wrote in a period of unexampled 
 literary activity, and in the thick of stupendous 
 events : Scott, Moore, and Byron were writing 
 their poems ; Napoleon was shaking the thrones 
 of the Continent. Looked back upon from our 
 days, the conquests of the poets seem nearly as 
 astonishing as the conquests of the Emperor. 
 He passed from victory to victory, and so did 
 they. When quieter days came, and when the 
 great men of the former generation had either 
 passed away or were reposing on the laurels 
 they had earned so worthily, other writers arose 
 to sustain the glory of the English Essay. The 
 most distinguished were Lord Macaulay and 
 Mr Carlyle. They began to write about the 
 same time, — Lord Macaulay's Essay on Milton 
 appearing in the Edinbiirgli Review in 1825, 
 and Mr Carlylc's first Essay on Jean Paul 
 Richtcr in the same Review in 1827. The 
 writings of these men were different from those 
 of their predecessors. Mr Carlylc's primary 
 object was to acquaint his countrymen with 
 the great men whom Germany had recently pro-
 
 £SSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 237 
 
 duced, and to interest them in the productions 
 of German genius. His plans widened, how- 
 ever, as his way cleared ; and the eye which had 
 looked into the heart of Goethe, Schiller, and 
 Richter, was in course of time turned on the 
 Scottish Burns, the English Johnson, and the 
 French Voltaire. It is not too much to say that 
 he has produced the best critical and biographical 
 Essays of which the English language can boast. 
 And it is in the curious mixture of criticism 
 and biography in these papers — for the criticism 
 becomes biography, and the biography criticism 
 — that their chief charm and value consist. Mr 
 Carlyle is an artist, and he knows exactly what 
 and how much to put into his picture. He has 
 a wonderful eye for what is characteristic. He 
 searches after the secret of a man's nature, and 
 he finds it frequently in some trivial anecdote or 
 careless saying, which another writer would have 
 passed unnoticed, or tossed contemptuously aside. 
 He hunts up every scrap of information, and he 
 frequently finds what he wants in a corner. He 
 judges a man by his poem, and the poem by the 
 man. To his eye, they are not separate things, but 
 one and indivisible. A man's work is the lamp 
 by which he reads his features. And then he so
 
 238 JISSAV/STS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 apportions praise and blame ; so sets off the jocose 
 and familiar with a moral solemnity ; makes anec- 
 dote, and detail of dress, and allusion to personal 
 grace or deformity, subserve, by intricate sugges- 
 tion, his ultimate purpose, and so presents to us 
 life with eternity for back-ground, that we not only 
 feel that the picture is the actual presentment 
 of the man as he lived — a veritable portrait, — 
 we feel also that the writer has worked in no 
 light or careless mood, that the poorest life is 
 serious enough when seen against eternity, and 
 that we ourselves, however seldom we may re- 
 member it, are but momentary shadows pro- 
 jected upon it. Mr Carlyle does not write 
 "scoundrel" on one man's forehead, and "angel" 
 on another's : he knows that pure scoundrel and 
 pure angel have their dwellings in other places 
 than earth ; he is too cunning an artist to use 
 these mercilessly definite lines. He works by 
 allusion, suggestion, light touches of fancy, 
 spurts of humour, grotesque imaginative ex- 
 aggerations ; and these things so reduce and 
 tone one another down, that the final result is 
 perfectly natural and homogeneous. It is only by 
 some such combination of intellectual forces that 
 you can shadow forth the complexity of life and
 
 ESS A YISTS, OLD AND NEW. 239 
 
 character. In humanity there is no such thinn 
 as a straight Hne or an unmixed colour. You see 
 the flesh colour on the check of a portrait : the 
 artist will tell you that the consummately-natural 
 result was not attained by one wash of paint, but 
 by the mixture and reduplication of a hundred 
 tints, the play of myriad lights and shadows, no 
 one of which is natural in itself, although the 
 blending of the whole is. These Essays are the 
 completes!, the most characteristic portraits in 
 our literature. Mr Carlyle is always at home 
 when his subject is man in the concrete. 
 
 Lord Macaulay also wrote Essays critical and 
 biographical, and has been perhaps more widely 
 popular than his great contemporary ; but he is 
 a different kind of thinker and writer altogether. 
 He did not brood over the abysses of being as Mr 
 Carlyle continually does. The sense of time and 
 death did not haunt him as they haunt the other. 
 The world, as it figured itself to Lord Macaulay, 
 was a comparatively commonplace world. He 
 cared for man, but he cared for party quite as 
 much. He recognised men mainly as Whigs and 
 Tories. His idea of the universe was a Parliamen- 
 tary one. His insight into man was not deep. 
 He painted in positive colours. He is never so
 
 240 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 antithetical as when describing a character ; and 
 character, if properly conceived, sets the measured 
 antitheses of the rhetorician at defiance. It is 
 constantly eluding them. His criticism is good 
 enough so far as it goes, but it does not go far ; it 
 deals more with the accidents than the realities of 
 things. Lord Macaulay, as we have said, lived 
 quite as much for party as for man ; and the men 
 who interested him were the men who were his- 
 torical centres, around whom men and events re- 
 volved. He did not, as Mr Carlyle often does, take 
 hold of an individual, and view him against im- 
 mensity; he takes a man and looks at him in 
 connection with contemporary events. When he 
 writes of Johnson, he is thinking all the while 
 of Goldsmith, and Garrick, and Boswell, and 
 Reynolds ; when he writes of Clive and Warren 
 Hastings, he is more anxious to tell the story of 
 their Indian conquests than to enter into the 
 secrets of their spirits. And for this posterity 
 is not likely to blame Lord Macaulay. He 
 knew his strength. His pictorial faculty is 
 a.stonishing ; neither pomp nor circumstance 
 cumbers it ; it moves along like a triumphal 
 procession, which no weight of insignia and ban- 
 ner can oppress. Out of the past he selects
 
 ESSA VISTS, OLD AND NE W. 241 
 
 some special drama, which is vivified and held 
 together by the Hfe of a single individual, and 
 that he paints with his most brilliant colours. 
 He is the creator of the Historical Essay, and 
 in that department is not likely soon to have a 
 successor. His unfinished History is only a 
 series of historical pictures pieced together into 
 one imposing panorama, but throughout there is 
 wonderful splendour and pomp of colour. Every 
 figure, too, is finished, down to the buttons and 
 the finger nails. 
 
 A generation has passed since Mr Carlyle 
 and Lord Macaulay wrote their essays, and 
 during the interval new men have come into the 
 field, and w'on deserved laurels. " Notes from 
 Life," by the author of " Philip Van Artevelde." 
 is a volume every w^ay remarkable. Mr Taylor 
 is a fine and thoughtful poet, and he has brought 
 with him into the essay the poet's style and the 
 poet's wisdom. In his essays you find no cheap 
 and flashy sentiment, no running after the 
 popular manias of the day ; the eye is never 
 ofiended by a glare of colour : on the contrar)', 
 there is a certain ripeness about the thought, as 
 of autumn tints ; a certain stillness and medita- 
 tive repose, as of an autumn evening ; a certain 
 
 O
 
 242 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 remoteness and retiredness from modern strife 
 and bustle, as of autumn woodlands. These 
 essays are born of wisdom and experience ; and 
 of a wisdom and experience that has ripened in 
 solitude and self-communion. No sound reaches 
 you from the market-place — you cannot catch 
 the tang of any literary coterie. The style, too, 
 is peculiar in these days, from its leisurely move- 
 ment and old-fashioned elaborateness. It has 
 an Elizabethan air about it. It is far from being 
 unornamented : but the ornaments are worn 
 proudly, as heir-looms are worn ; and these never 
 glare, — they are far too precious for that, in price 
 of gold and gem and sacredness of memory, — 
 and are but seldom manufactured at Birming- 
 ham. The style has not been formed on the 
 fluent and hasty moderns, but on Bacon, Jeremy 
 Taylor, and such old men, and is about the best 
 that has ever been written by poet. 
 
 Mr Helps has the credit — apart from what 
 may fairly attach to his exquisitely pellucid 
 English, and the intrinsic value of his thinking 
 — of introducing a novelty into essay writing. 
 Naturally subtle-minded and tolerant, most 
 courteous to everything that comes to him in 
 the name of truth, conscientious, disposed to
 
 ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 243 
 
 listen to every witness, to hesitate and weigh, he 
 does not take up an opinion suddenly ; and 
 when he does take up one, he does not cling 
 to it as a shipwrecked sailor to his raft — said 
 raft being his only chance of escape from 
 drowning. Superficially, at least, an unim- 
 passioned man, fond of limitations and of 
 suggesting " buts," knowing that a good deal 
 may not only be said on two sides, but on a 
 dozen sides of a thing, Mr Helps, when he began 
 to write, found himself beset with an artistic 
 difficulty. He had, of course, on subjects in 
 which he was interested, and which he wished 
 to write about, certain definite opinions ; but as 
 he was big enough and clear-eyed enough to see 
 all round the matter in hand, he was conscious 
 that each of the opinions, which he accepted as 
 a whole, was subject to limitations, that each 
 of them was intersected and eaten into by its 
 opposite, like the map of Scotland by branching 
 sea-lochs, and that, if he gave expression to all 
 his doubts and hesitations in the work of essay- 
 writing, he would make no sort of direct pro- 
 gress. He would only be painting above his 
 picture. His one foot-print would obliterate 
 the other. And yet, to be faithful to himself
 
 244 BSSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 and to the work in hand, these limitations of 
 broad statement must be indicated in some 
 way. It is from this particular difficulty 
 felt by Mr Helps that we are indebted for 
 the machinery of the " Friends in Council." 
 From the necessity which lay on him of setting 
 forth in fulness his views of things, he was 
 forced to the artistic device of creating around 
 the central essay a little drama — one cha- 
 racter reading the essay which contains the 
 broad view, whilst other characters listen and 
 criticise, suggest the subtle difficulty, point 
 out the hazardous spot, define the inevitable 
 limitation. By this device the writer's subtlety 
 has a field to display itself in ; for the ob- 
 jections brought forward by the listeners are 
 not men of straw, raised up for the purpose of 
 being knocked down again — they are other 
 views of the central truth or opinion under 
 discussion. The listeners do not argue ; they 
 converse amicably and thoughtfully. And more 
 is gained than this : the author has an oppor- 
 tunity of introducing some admirably dramatic 
 by-play — for Ellcsmerc, Dunsford, and Lucy 
 really live ; and although the subject under dis- 
 cussion may be as old as evil or ignorance itself.
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 245 
 
 by letting in outside nature and English life 
 upon it, the thinking is not only charmingly 
 relieved, but it takes an essentially modern air. 
 The subject may be old, but English gentlemen 
 talk over it, and set forth their ideas of it from 
 their peculiar points of view. By this method 
 Mr Helps is enabled to discuss his subject 
 thoroughly, and to utter all that occurs to him 
 of value. The essay which Milverton reads is 
 a crystal ; but, by means of the other characters, 
 the crystal is held up towards the sun, and 
 turned slowly round, so that every facet catches 
 the ray, and flashes it back. 
 
 Considered as a literary form, the Essay is 
 comparatively of late growth. The first literary 
 efforts of a people consist of song and narrative. 
 First comes the poet or minstrel, who sings 
 heroic exploits, the strength and courage of 
 heroes. These songs pass from individual to 
 individual, and are valuable, not on account of 
 the amount of historic truth, but of the amount 
 of passion and imagery, they contain. Explode 
 to-morrow into mere myth and dream the inci- 
 dents of the Iliad, and you do not affect in the 
 slightest degree the literary merit of the poem. 
 Still for all men Achilles shouts in the trenches,
 
 246 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Helen is beautiful, the towers of Ilium flame to 
 heaven. Prove that Chevy Chase cannot in any- 
 one particular be considered a truthful relation 
 of events, and you do it no special harm. It 
 stirs the blood like a trumpet all the same. 
 After the poet comes the prose narrator of 
 events, who presents his facts peering obscurely 
 through the mists of legend, but who has striven, 
 as far as his ability extends, to tell us the truth. 
 When he appears, the history of a nation has 
 become extensive enough and important enough 
 to awaken curiosity ; men are anxious to know 
 how events did actually occur, and what relation 
 one event bears to another. When he appears, 
 the national temper has cooled down — men 
 no longer stand blinded by the splendours of 
 sunrise. The sunrise has melted into the light 
 of common day. The air has become emptied 
 of wonder. The gods have deserted earth, 
 and men only remain. Long after the poet 
 and the historian comes the Essayist. Before 
 the stage is prepared for him, thought must 
 have accumulated to a certain point ; a literature 
 less or more must be in existence, and must be 
 preserved in printed books. Songs have been 
 sung, histories and biographies have been writ-
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 247 
 
 ten ; and to these songs, histories, and bio- 
 graphies, he must have access. Then, before he 
 can write, society must have formed itself, for in 
 its complexity and contrasts he finds his food. 
 Before the Essayist can have free play, society 
 must have existed long enough to have become 
 self-conscious, introspective ; to have brooded 
 over itself and its perplexities ; to have dis- 
 covered its blots and weak points ; to have be- 
 come critical, and, consequently, appreciative of 
 criticism. And as the Essay does not, like the 
 poem, or the^arly history or narration of events, 
 appeal to the primitive feelings, before it can be 
 read and enjoyed, there must exist a class who 
 have attained wealth and leisure, and a certain 
 acquaintance with the accumulated stores of 
 thought on which the Essayist works, else his 
 allusions are lost, his criticism a dead letter, 
 his satire pointless. All this takes a long time 
 to accomplish, and it is generally Jate in the 
 literary history of a country before its Essayists 
 appear. Then, the Essay itself has its peculiar 
 literary conditions. It bears the same relation 
 to the general body of prose that the lyric bears 
 to the general body of poetry. Like the lyric. 
 it is brief; and, like the lyric, it demands a
 
 248 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 certain literary finish and perfection In a long 
 epic, the poet may now and then be allowed to 
 nod ; in a history, it is not essential that every 
 sentence should sparkle. But the Essayist, from 
 the very nature of his task, is not permitted to 
 be dull or slovenly. He must be alert, full of 
 intellectual life, concise, polished. He must 
 think clearly, and express himself clearly. His 
 style is as much an element of his success as his 
 thought. The narrow limit in which he works 
 demands this. In a. ten-mile race it is not 
 expected that the runners shall go all the way 
 at the top of their speed ; in a race of three 
 hundred yards it is not unreasonably expected 
 that they shall do so. Then, besides all this, 
 the Essay must, as a basis or preliminary, be 
 artistically conceived. It is neither a disserta- 
 tion nor a thesis ; properly speaking, it is a work 
 of art, and must conform to artistic rules. It 
 requires not only the intellectual qualities which 
 we have indicated, but unity, wholeness, self- 
 completion. In this it resembles a poem. It 
 must hang together. It must round itself off 
 into a separate literary entity. When finished, 
 it must be able to sustain itself and live. The 
 Essayists of whom we have spoken fulfil these
 
 £SSA VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 249 
 
 conditions more or less ; and the measure of 
 their fulfilment is the measure of success. These 
 writers indicate in what directions the Essay 
 has manifested itself, and they may be roughly 
 arranged in groups and clusters. There are the 
 Egotists — the most delightful of all — who choose 
 for subjects themselves, their surroundings, their 
 moods and phantasies, whose charm consists not 
 so much in the value or brilliancy of thought as 
 in revelation of personal character : these are 
 represented by Montaigne and Lamb ; the 
 satirists of society, manners, and social pheno- 
 mena, by Addison and Steele ; the fanciful and 
 ornamental Essayists — they who wreathe the 
 human porch with the honeysuckles of poetry — 
 by Hunt, and by Hazlitt to some extent; the 
 critical and biographical Essay, by Mr Carlyle ; 
 the historical Essay — the brilliant and many- 
 coloured picture of which some single man's life 
 is the frame — by Lord Macaulay ; the moral 
 and didactic Essay, by Bacon in old time, and 
 recently by Mr Henry Taylor and Mr Helps. 
 Of course, this is but an arrangement in the 
 rough, and will not stand a too critical examina- 
 tion, for several of the writers mentioned belong 
 now to one cluster and now to another ; but it is
 
 250 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 sufficiently strict for our present purpose. Essay 
 writing is a craft vigorously prosecuted in Eng- 
 land at present ; and generally the Avriters will 
 be found to belong to one or other of the groups 
 which we have indicated. It is our duty now to 
 see of Avhat stuff these men are made, and how 
 as Essayists they have acquitted themselves. 
 
 Mr Hannay, whose " Essays from the Quar- 
 terly " appeared some eighteen months ago, has 
 been before the world as a writer for twelve or 
 fourteen years. Born among Galwegian moors 
 and moss bogs, where the shells of old fortresses 
 yet stand, their red walls clothed with ivies, their 
 crannies inhabited by starlings and jackdaws — 
 a native of the district to which Lord Maxwell 
 bade " good night " in the famous ballad, and 
 which adjoins the Ayrshire which Burns has con- 
 secrated from pastoral hill-top to valley-daisy — 
 his first spiritual food was naturally song, ballad, 
 tradition. For in that region — quite as much as 
 in the regions north of the Grampians — 
 
 "The ancient spirit is not dead." 
 
 Sent into the navy at an early age, he spent 
 several years in the Mediterranean, visited the
 
 ESSA Y/STS, OLD AND NEW. 251 
 
 Grecian Isles and the Syrian coast, alternating 
 his native Scottish traditions with older classical 
 and sacred associations. The Acropolis suc- 
 ceeded to Drumlanrig Fair ; the far-seen snowy- 
 Lebanon to blue Criffel and the Solway ; Horace 
 and the Old Testament displaced the ballad- 
 monger. On leaving the navy, and while yet a 
 very young man, he flung himself into London 
 literary life, while London literary life was more 
 brilliant, socially and conversationally, than it is 
 at present. For a literary man, Mr Hannay may 
 be said to have started with a fair variety of 
 experience as a preliminary basis. It is not 
 every man that, into the first twenty years or so 
 of his life, has crushed grey Scotland and the 
 elowincf East, the Mediterranean and the Sol- 
 way, the classical poets and the Scottish ballads, 
 the discipline and routine of duty on board a 
 man-of-war; nay, something of the splendour 
 and terror of war itself. His first literary efforts 
 consisted of sketches of naval life, which met with 
 considerable success. In 1851 he published his 
 first novel, "Singleton Fontenoy;" and in 1854 
 his first volume of Essays, entitled " Satire and 
 Satirists " appeared. These Essays, in all pro- 
 bability suggested by Mr Thackeray's " English
 
 252 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Humorists," were originally delivered in the 
 form of lectures. Whether as lectures they 
 were successful, we cannot say ; but in that 
 form their merits were discovered, and they 
 made their appearance in a volume shortly after. 
 In the six Essays which the book contains, Mr 
 Hannay gives an account of European satire 
 from Horace to Jerrold ; and although some- 
 what slight, as was inevitable from its narrow 
 limits, the work is thoroughly well done. -From 
 the polish of the suave old Roman to the wit of 
 the Englishman, whose epigrams are yet ringing 
 in our ears, is a journey which, if accomplished 
 in a little book of two hundred pages, can allow 
 but little loitering on the way. But for his 
 task Mr Hannay possessed abundant knowledge, 
 and his special liking for his subject is every- 
 where evident. He lingers over the good things 
 of his heroes ; he relates their immortal revenges 
 with the same pride with which the member 
 of a regiment become historical recalls the 
 battle-fields on which it gathered its renown. 
 He speaks of Erasmus, Dryden, Pope, and 
 Byron, as the art student copying in the gal- 
 leries speaks of Michael Angelo and De Vinci 
 — appreciating their excellences, and hoping one
 
 ESS A V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 253 
 
 day to emulate them. Mr Ilannay was not 
 only qualified to write on the Satirists from 
 taste, enthusiasm, and loving study, but from 
 the possession of a power somewhat akin to their 
 own. He writes clearly, criticises soundly when 
 occasion arises ; yet one can see at a glance that 
 the sovereign faculty of his own mind is wit. His 
 thought is continually condensing itself into epi- 
 gram. And then his wit has a certain some- 
 thing, of poetry about it, which makes it all the 
 more delightful ; it is continually going about 
 with a flower of fancy in its hand. In " Satire 
 and Satirists," Mr Hannay, like all very clever 
 young men, is somewhat spendthrift of his 
 means. He is always giving sovereign "tips," 
 so to speak. Some of his pages are as brilliant 
 and dangerous with squib and serpent as a 
 London pavement on Coronation night. He 
 cracks his satirical whip for the mere pleasure 
 he has in hearing it. If the occasion requires 
 it, he fires off his rockets, and he fires them off 
 frequently when there is no occasion what- 
 ever: there is a large stock on hand, and, 
 after all, rockets are a very pretty sight. The 
 following passage on the " Simious Satirist " will 
 illustrate what we mean : —
 
 254 £SSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 " The Simious Satirist is distinguished by a 
 deficiency of natural reverence mainly. His 
 heart is hard, rather ; his feelings blunt and 
 dull. He is blind to everything else but the 
 satirical aspect of things ; and if he is brilliant, 
 it is as a cat's back is when rubbed in the dark ! 
 He has generally no sentiment of respect for 
 form, and will spare nothing. He is born sus- 
 picious ; and if he hears the world admiring 
 anything, forthwith he concludes that it must be 
 'humbug.' He has no regard to the heaps of 
 honour gathered round this object by time and 
 the affection of wise men. He cries, * Down 
 with it ! ' As his kinsman, when looking at 
 some vase, or curious massive specimen of gold, 
 sees only his own image in it, our satirist sees the 
 ridiculous only in every object, and forgets that 
 the more clearly he sees it, the more he testifies 
 to its brightness. Or, as his kinsman breaks a 
 cocoa-nut only to get at the milk, he would des- 
 troy everything only to nourish his mean nature. 
 He prides himself on his commonest qualities, 
 as the negroes who rebelled called themselves 
 Marquises of Lemonade. He would tear the 
 blossoms off a rose branch to make it a stick to 
 beat his betters with. He employs his gifts in
 
 ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 255 
 
 ignoble objects, as you sec in sweetmeat shops 
 sugar shaped into dogs and pigs. He taints his 
 mind with egotism, as if a man should spoil the 
 sight of a telescope by clouding it with his 
 breath. He overrates the value of his quickness 
 and activity, and forgets that, like his kinsman, 
 he owes his triumphant power of swinging in 
 high places to the fact of his prehensile tail." 
 
 Mr Hannay, we have said, is fond of epi- 
 g-ram ; and it seems to us that in " Satire and 
 Satirists" epigram is used at times somewhat 
 vaingloriously. The epigram does not always 
 arise naturally from the matter in hand ; it is 
 rather stuck upon it, like a bit of tinsel ; and 
 this is, perhaps, the chief blot on the book. It 
 is too clever, and it is too clever wilfully. This 
 literary ornament, like all others, should be 
 used sparingly. A gentleman gains nothing 
 by covering his fingers with rings ; and at any 
 time one sole diamond is worth a dozen in- 
 ferior stones. Yet it must be said that the 
 writer is often exceedingly happy in his epigram. 
 Take the following, for instance, on Theodore 
 Hook: "They"— his noble patrons— " set him 
 down to the piano, even before he had had his 
 dinner sometimes, according to one biographer.
 
 256 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 This was too bad. He was proud, however, of 
 the equivocal distinction he attained, and was 
 incHned to swagger, I understand, among his 
 equals. The plush had eaten into his very soul. 
 Ultimately he ruined his heart, his circum- 
 stances, and (what was a still greater loss) his 
 stomach, and so died. The biographer above 
 mentioned observes, that his funeral was ill 
 attended by his great friends. But we need 
 not wonder at that — a funeral is a well-known 
 ' bore ;' and, besides, the most brilliant wag 
 cannot be amusing on the occasion of his own 
 interment." The closing sentence of this ex- 
 tract is perfect, and quite equal to the best 
 thing of any epigrammatist. On the face 
 of it, it is amusing. But it is more than 
 that. It is a biography and a moral judgment 
 in a single sentence. It reveals the relation 
 which the wit bore to his patrons far more 
 clearly than whole pages of Avriting, or any 
 amount of moral declamation. And in the book 
 there are many sentences equally memorable. 
 
 " Essays from the Qnartcrlyl' is, in every way, 
 a better and riper book than its predecessor : 
 the writing is always excellent ; and if there is 
 less epigram, there is more matter. The sub-
 
 BSSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 257 
 
 jects of several of these Essays He in a region 
 somewhat remote, not frequently visited by the 
 modern man of letters ; and on these subjects 
 Mr Hannay has written, not on account of their 
 novelty, but because he was already acquainted 
 with them, and had a special affection for them. 
 In these Essays there is little trace of " reading 
 up ;" he writes from the fulness of knowledge. 
 Certain of the Essays contained in the volume 
 —as those on " Table Talk," on " English Poli- 
 tical Satires," on " Electioneering," and on 
 "Horace and the Translators" — are, in the 
 very nature of them, akin to " Satire and 
 Satirists," and may be considered as supple- 
 mentary to that work. These he has treated 
 everywhere with the old lightness, grace, and 
 knowledge, but — having more space and leisure 
 at command — with greater fulness and elabora- 
 tion. It would be difficult to find pleasanter 
 reading than these. The town is well worth 
 seeing, and the cicerone knows every turn and 
 winding, and is familiar with the best stand- 
 points. It is a discourse on " good things," by 
 a writer who not only can appreciate them, but 
 who can say them. It is a wit talking about 
 wits. In these Essays there is abundance of
 
 258 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 knowledge and sound sense, but the knowledge 
 and the sense go about in sparkle and epigram. 
 There are two things which Mr Hannay spe- 
 cially admires — genius, wit, scholarship — literary 
 distinction, in fact — and good blood. If you 
 are a wit or a poet, he will take you to his heart ; 
 if you are neither wit nor poet, he will take you 
 to his heart equally enthusiastically if you can 
 prove to him that your great-great-great-grand- 
 father was ruined in the wars of the Roses. His 
 admiration for wit, scholarship, and song, he 
 has set forth in "Satire and Satirists," and in 
 his "Essays from the Quarterly ;'' his admira- 
 tion for ancient and historical names airs itself 
 in the papers on "British Family Histories" and 
 " The Historic Peerage of England." These 
 Essays are quite peculiar in their way. It is 
 not often that the reflected colours of or and 
 gules lie on the popular page. But seldom have 
 genealogical trees greened with the spring, and 
 put forth blossoms of fancy. Genealogy indeed 
 has been the favourite pursuit of Dr Dryasdust. 
 But poetic association can do almost anything. 
 An old china cup may be uninteresting enough 
 in itself; but when one remembers the fair lips 
 that once touched it, the dead scandals that
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 259 
 
 were talked over it, it becomes at once an object 
 of interest. An old Roman coin may be quite 
 useless for the purchase of modern beef or 
 bread ; but when you gaze imaginatively on the 
 half-obliterated Q'i^gy of the Roman Emperor, 
 the intervening centuries collapse ; England be- 
 comes green waste and forest ; up springs the 
 triumphal arch, the conqueror passes through 
 it with all his captives, you hear the shouts 
 of the populace. And so, to Mr Hannay, a 
 great name recalls a thousand memories ; he 
 sees the chivalric and wise faces of the men, 
 and the beautiful eyes of the women, that bore 
 it of old. An old castle is sacred in his eyes, 
 for noble memories grow upon it as thickly as 
 its shrouding ivies. He sees the modern earl 
 standing, but Agincourt is in the back-ground, 
 and there is always "a pomp of fancied trumpets 
 on the wind." He traces the stems of ancient 
 families, and lingers over the flowers of valour, 
 wit, genius, personal beauty, which generation 
 after generation they put forth, and which 
 brighten yet the air of history. He values a 
 sprig of ivy or a wild flower from a castle wall 
 over which a banner once fl.appcd, more than 
 the wealth of Rothschild. To be embalmed in a
 
 26o ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 ballad is the fame which he would covet most. 
 He is fond of crests and coats of armour, and all 
 the insignia of the herald ; but he cares nothing 
 for these in themselves — his affection goes out 
 towards what these symbols represent. He 
 reverences the Bloody Heart, and cares not on 
 what material it may be worked — the standard's 
 silken folds, or the gaberdine of the beggar. 
 He laughs openly at the chivalric device and 
 motto blazing on the coach-panels of the suc- 
 cessful coal -merchant. The past moves him 
 mightily — he is attracted by the deeds, the wit, 
 the splendour of long ago ; and on the past he 
 continually feels that the present is based, as 
 its natural outcome and result. Instinctively 
 he feels that in history there is sequence and 
 progression ; in the face of the son he seeks to 
 discern something of the high features of the 
 father. And it is his belief that the ancient 
 feudal hardihood did not die out on feudal 
 battle-fields ; that wit did not expire for ever in 
 the poem or the epigram in which it made itself 
 visible ; that beauty did not cease finally in 
 wrinkles and grey hairs. He thinks that the 
 virtues of race are the truest heirlooms, descend- 
 ing from father to son, and from mother to
 
 £SSA VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 261 
 
 daughter, far more certainly than broad lands 
 and castles. He holds that the courage uhicli 
 kept the trenches in the Crimea, and which 
 subdued the Indian mutiny, is directly trans- 
 mitted from the men who fought at Bosworth 
 and Marston Moor, and that the beauty which 
 charms us to-day is a reminiscence of the beauty 
 which charmed the cavaliers. Thus, by per- 
 petuation of valour and beauty, he knits century 
 with century, and generation with generation ; 
 thus to his mind does epoch flow out of epoch. 
 And this theory — which, doubtless, many will be 
 inclined to dispute — Mr Hannay supports by 
 numerous instances : — 
 
 " Few writers in our day have a word of decent 
 civility for the family of Stewart. It would be 
 curious to trace its hereditary character in the 
 chief line ; our present purpose is only to remark 
 on the greatness attained by some men who 
 descended maternally from it. We need scarcely 
 say that the mother of William of Orange was 
 a Stewart princess. The mother of Cromwell 
 was, as we believe, of one branch of the family. 
 So was the mother of the Admirable Crichton ; 
 and of the famous soldier Alexander Leslie, first
 
 262 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Earl of Leven. Chatham was nearly and directly 
 from the royal stem, through his grandmother — 
 a descendant of the Regent Murray. Fox's 
 mother, , Lady Lennox, was immediately de- 
 scended from Charles II. Byron had the blood 
 in his veins. How interesting to see eminent 
 families sharing in this kind of way in a great 
 man's renown! The gifted Shaftesbury's mother 
 was a Manners; Algernon Sidney's, a Percy; 
 and his famous kinsman, Philip's, a Dudley ; 
 the poet Beaumont's, a Pierrepont. The mother 
 of Marshal Stair was a Dundas ; and the bril- 
 liant Peterborough was the son of one of the 
 brilliant Carys. The Ruthvens and Carne- 
 gies gave mothers to Montrose and Dundee. 
 The Villierses gave a mother to Chatham ; the 
 Granvilles, to Pitt ; the Douglases of Strath- 
 henry, to Adam Smith. Nelson inherited the 
 blood of the Sucklings and Walpoles ; Colling- 
 wood that of the Greys and Plantagenets. From 
 the Hampdens came the mother of Waller, and 
 also Mary Arden (of that ancient Warwickshire 
 family), the mother of Shakespeare. The literary 
 talent runs through female lines like other qua- 
 lities : Swift's mother was a Herrick, and his 
 grandmother a Dryden. Donne, derived through
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 263 
 
 his mother, from Sir Thomas Moore; and Cowper 
 in the same way from the Donnes. Thomson 
 had the Hume blood in his veins. A daughter 
 of Becaria produced Manzoni. The late Bishop 
 Coplestone evidently got his playfulness from- the 
 Gays, as Chesterfield his wit from Lord Halifax. 
 The relationship between Fielding and ' Lady 
 Mary' is well known. Sometimes, when a not- 
 able man comes from a family never before 
 heard of, it happens that he just comes after a 
 niarriage with a better one : Thus, the mother of 
 Seldon was of the Knightly Bakers of Kent ; 
 Camdens, of the ancient Curwins of Workington ; 
 
 and Watts of the old stock of Muirhead 
 
 Philosophers, like Bacon, Hume, and Berkeley ; 
 poets, like Spenser, Cowper, Shelley, and Scott ; 
 novelists, like Fielding and Smollett ; historians, 
 like Gibbon ; seamen, like Collingwood, Howe, 
 Jervis; Vanes, St Johns, Raleighs, George Her- 
 berts, and many other men of the ancient gentry, 
 amply vindicate the pretensions of old families 
 to the honour of producing the best men that 
 England has ever seen." 
 
 Holding the theory that fam.ilies can only rise 
 to distinction through superiority of some kind—
 
 264- ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 that, having arisen, they intermarry with families 
 on their own social level, who have also arisen 
 through superiority of some kind — consequently 
 that the offspring of such marriages have a 
 double chance of possessing an unusual share of 
 brain or of general power, and that the virtue of 
 race thus built up is perpetuated in the descend- 
 ants, and is continually making itself visible in 
 them — Mr Hannay is in politics inevitably a. 
 Conservative. A nation must be ruled by its 
 best men, and the best men must be sought in 
 the old houses. If a man wishes to enter into 
 public affairs, the best letter of introduction he 
 can bring with him is his ancient descent. We 
 know what his family has been in the past ; and 
 as he inherits the virtues and the traditions of 
 his race, we can form some idea of how he will 
 turn out. His good conduct is guaranteed by a 
 hundred ancestors. Holding these doctrines, Mr 
 Hannay naturally detests democracy, looks upon 
 universal suffrage with no favourable eye, is 
 quite the reverse of an adherent of Mr Bright's, 
 and does not think that America has solved the 
 problem of how a nation can best be governed. 
 He does not consider that a cheap government 
 is necessarily the best, and he expects nothing
 
 ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 265 
 
 but disorder from an extension of the franchise. 
 He thus expresses himself in the Essay on "The 
 Historic Peerage:" — "This — 'the great difference 
 between the vulgar and the noble seed ' — was an 
 article of faith among the gentlemen of the king- 
 dom. They held the old Greek doctrine, that 
 'nobility is virtue of race,' and believed that 
 those who possessed it were naturally superior 
 to other men. Their portraits — calm, stately, 
 brave, and wise faces — ^justify their creed to the 
 eye ; and the men they produced — the Sidneys, 
 Raleighs, Bacons — justify it to the understand- 
 ing. By and by there will be a hearing again 
 for this side of affairs in Europe, after the total 
 failure of the revolutionary party to produce 
 governing intellects has had a still wider scope 
 to show itself in." 
 
 So, argues Mr Hannay — the men of the old 
 houses possessed calmness, dignity, bravery, 
 wisdom; they were leaders, they were states- 
 men ; and when we wish these qualities to bear 
 on the work of government, we cannot do better 
 than seek them in the persons of their de- 
 scendants. There is at least oiic chance more 
 that the governing intellect will be found there 
 than in other regions. The quarter of the wood
 
 266 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 in which you gathered strawberries six summers 
 ago, is the Hkehest place to find strawberries 
 when they are again wanted. 
 
 This view of the virtue of race, and its trans- 
 mission in the blood from father to son, is rather 
 indicated than formally argued out in these 
 Essays. Of course many objections will be 
 taken to it ; and as a theory, it cannot be ac- 
 cepted ill toto. Its truth ends when its chapter 
 of instances ends. Grant that a family rises 
 above the level of mankind through superiority 
 of one kind or another, that superiority is not 
 transmitted perpetually. Even when a family 
 which has been potent does not actually die out, 
 the superiority which it once possessed, and by 
 virtue of which it arose, seems at times to die 
 out. There were historical families which have 
 disappeared entirely from history, jiist as there 
 were stars known to the ancient astronomers 
 which are not now visible in our heavens ; 
 certain families, too, seem to lose, after a genera- 
 tion or so, their ancient pith and force, and to 
 lose themselves as a stream loses itself in a 
 morass. Mr Hannay hints that, as Cromwell 
 had a dash of the Stewart blood in his veins, 
 the Stewart blood should have the credit of his
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 267 
 
 greatness ; but Cromwell's son, Richard, had the 
 Stewart blood also, and he let thfe reins of 
 government slip from his grasp through weak- 
 ness and ineptitude. Then, admitting the theory 
 of general force in a race, you never can tell what 
 shape that general force will take in a descend- 
 ant. Every now and again, in a historical line, 
 an alien character seems to blossom out, as the 
 spiritual, saintly face of Edward VI. gleams 
 among the strong-willed and masterful Tudors. 
 Mr Hannay tells us that many men of the 
 "ancient gentry" amply vindicate the pretensions 
 of old families to the honour of "producing the 
 best men that England has ever seen." The 
 phrase " ancient gentry" is a misleading one. 
 How ancient ? Mr Hannay does not limit the 
 ancient gentry to the descendants of the men 
 who came over with the Conqueror. In every 
 generation certain families rise out of the people 
 into the position of gentry ; and if the theory is 
 correct, that a family only rises into eminent 
 station through general superiority, and that that 
 superiority is to some extent perpetuated, the 
 governing intellect is as likely to be found in the 
 descendant of the gentleman of one century's 
 standincT as in the descendant of the gentleman
 
 268 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 of ten. And, in point of fact, it is as readily 
 found. Within the last seventy years the Buona- 
 partes have become occupants of thrones, the 
 Peel family rose into eminence quite lately, the 
 Gladstone family yet more recently. But, put- 
 ting cavil aside, Mr Hannay's view of blood 
 contains much truth, and is essentially poetic 
 besides. He looks back with reverence and 
 affection on the generations of dead Englishmen 
 and Englishwomen. The eyes of the Countess 
 of Salisbury haunt him. He cannot forget Sid- 
 ney's chivalric face; he enjoys the wit of Charles 
 n. quite as much as did any of his courtiers. 
 He walks back into history, and he is greeted 
 by wit, and song, and beautiful women, and fine 
 manners, and splendid furniture and array. The 
 old time, with its colour and high spirit, lives 
 again for him ; again the feast is spread in the 
 feudal castle ; again the feudal banners unroll 
 themselves on the breeze ; again on the battle- 
 field old war-cries are shouted. And, in a 
 country like England, so full of the past, not 
 only in its political constitution and its un- 
 parallelled literature, but in objects which appeal 
 directly to the eye — in mighty castle ruins, 
 where nobles lived who mated once with kings ;
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 269 
 
 cathedrals in which the sound of chantinc is 
 heard no more ; Westminster Abbey with its 
 dead ; the world's first sailor and soldier beneath 
 the dome of St Paul's ; dwellings of nobles se- 
 questered in oak woods, which for two hundred 
 autumns now have shed their acorns ; princely 
 colleges, endowed by liberal and pious men of 
 old; guns and banners captured in every quarter 
 of the globe — this reverence and affection for the 
 remarkable families who have headed its efforts 
 in every direction, are most natural and befitting. 
 English history was nt)t built up by knaves and 
 scoundrels, and men hungry for wealth and 
 advancement, but mainly by good and noble 
 men and women. The virtues had more to do 
 with it than the vices. Mr Hannay loves his 
 land, but it is with a love 
 
 " Far brought 
 From out the storied past." 
 
 And although his readers may not go all the 
 way with him in his theories of descent, yet it 
 may be said that even in these theories there is 
 a great proportion of truth, and a side of the 
 truth which has perhaps not been sufficiently 
 dwelt upon of late. We need to be reminded
 
 270 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 at times that worth is older than the steam- 
 engine, that the present is moored upon the past, 
 and that a great deal of what we are proudest of 
 is drawn directly from our ancestors. Mr Han- 
 nay has lived in close intellectual companionship 
 with great Englishmen — the nobles, the wits, the 
 cavaliers who could turn a stanza on the pleasures 
 of the wine cup and the beauty of woman, as 
 well as, on battle mornings, fling themselves 
 bravely on the foemen's pikes ; and from his 
 intercourse with these worthies he has gained 
 much, for into his own writings he has imported 
 the grace, the polish, and the wit for which they 
 are so remarkable. 
 
 Readers of Erasers Magazine have, for the 
 last six or seven years, been familiar with 
 critical and descriptive papers to which the signa- 
 ture of " Shirley " was appended — papers which, 
 considered as literature, rose considerably above 
 the average contents of a periodical which has 
 always been distinguished for literary excellence. 
 Having read these papers with singular pleasure 
 as they appeared month by month, we are glad 
 to see them collected in a volume, which, if it 
 gets its deserts, will find a place in many a
 
 £SSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 271 
 
 private as well as in many a circulating library. 
 Shirley is a pleasantly vagrant writer; his 
 thought gads and wanders around his subject 
 like the wild convolvulus, taking colour and frag- 
 rance with it wherever it goes. If, for the most 
 part, he avoids profound subjects, and never 
 attempts exhaustive treatment, he is always 
 eminently readable, charming his reader with an 
 unusual grace of presentment and the light of 
 pleasant fancies. He has a laudable horror of 
 dulness ; he is a bookish man, well read in the 
 poets and prose writers — a little too indolently 
 inclined, perhaps, to quote the poets; — tasteful, 
 acute, picturesque ; and the Essays now re- 
 published are the mere play and recreation of 
 his mind. He takes up his pen from the same 
 motive, and with the same enjoyment, with which 
 he puts his foot in the stirrup and rides into the 
 country — down the quiet lane scented with white 
 and red dog-roses, out to the' headland which 
 gazes upon the azure world of the Atlantic, up to 
 the red ruin on the hill, patched with ivies. In 
 these papers there is no plodding, no burden or 
 heat of the day ; he infects the reader with his 
 own freshness of feeling ; everything is light, 
 airy, graceful. He yachts over the shining seas
 
 2/2 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND N^W. 
 
 of criticism and speculation. He is fond of out- 
 door life, of bare and level sands through which 
 the slow stream stagnates to the main, of worn 
 and fantastic northern rocks around which sea- 
 birds wheel and clamour, and on which the big 
 billow smites itself into a column of foam. The 
 sea-side he is never tired of painting ; yet we feel 
 that at the sea-side he does not spend his days. 
 We almost fancy that Shirley writes] only in 
 vacation. His Essays do not seem to have been 
 produced in a study littered with books ; rather 
 they seem to have been composed in Tweeds 
 and " wide-awake " in a clover field ; for the 
 shadows of the tall grasses are constantly chequer- 
 ing his pages, and the summer breeze and the 
 lark's song seem to get entangled and mingled 
 with his sentences somehow. He is fond of 
 framing his criticisms with a border of landscape 
 or incidents of country life ; and it not unfre- 
 quently happens that the frame is more valuable 
 than the picture it contains. And this constant 
 intrusion of the outside world into the critical 
 and more serious papers, which is at best a pretty 
 irrelevance, symptomatic perhaps of volatility of 
 mind and purpose, suggests the main defect of 
 these Essays, which consists in a certain lack of
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 273 
 
 body and thoroughness. They have but Httlc spe- 
 cific gravity. There is too much hoHday and too 
 httle work in them. They are brilh'ant enough, but 
 their brilHance is rather that of nebulous vapour 
 than of the condensed and soHd star. They lack 
 personality, and the definite edge of intellectual 
 character. They are of the stuff that dreams are 
 made of. If a writer professes to give us a criti- 
 cal estimate of a book or an author, we naturally 
 expect that he shall at once proceed to do so ; if 
 he begins with a description of a trouting stream, 
 tells us how a girl fords it with kilted petticoats, 
 then relates how he captured a fish, and gives 
 the exclamation of a certain " Bob Morris " from 
 the opposite bank on witnessing the feat, then 
 diverges on a yellow bee which comes humming 
 along seeking honey on the heathery bent, we 
 begin to suspect either that he is conscious that 
 he has nothing critically important to say, or 
 that he is terribly afraid of the trouble of saying 
 it. To write critically may not be so easy as to 
 write descriptively ; but it must be done, never- 
 theless ; and especially should it be done by a 
 writer who professes to do it. Why should not 
 criticism be criticism and nothing else ? When 
 
 you have a book to review, what necessity is 
 
 S
 
 274 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 there for running into Arcadia with it to accom- 
 plish the task ? Arcadians do not compose the 
 modern reading world. Shirley spars prettily 
 enough ; but it is all sparring, with no close and 
 wrestle. Before he arrives at his subject, he has 
 to walk into the country for a couple of miles, and 
 has his fish to catch. In the " Sphinx," certainly 
 one of the best of his Essays, and which, as 
 dealing with the impotence of history, might be 
 supposed to demand a uniform seriousness of 
 treatment, he starts off in the following manner : 
 
 " We sat on the Devil's Bridge, and swung 
 our legs over the parapet, Reginald de Moreville 
 and I. 
 
 " The De Morevilles were a fine Norman 
 family in the reign of David I., ' that sair sanct 
 for the Crown.' The present representative in- 
 herits the feudal tastes of his house, without the 
 burden of its acres. 
 
 " The arch of a royal dome that hangs above 
 the blue sea ! Down the storm-stained sides of 
 the precipice we can see the marrots standing 
 like sentries along the slippery ledges, crowding 
 around their fantastically-coloured eggs, indulg- 
 ing in expressions of uncouth fun and uncouth
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 275 
 
 endearment. Farther off, the skua gulls, ' white 
 as ocean foam in the moon,' ' white as the con- 
 secrated snow that lies on Dian's lap' [choose 
 between Shakespeare and Tennyson], float along 
 the face of the cliffs, or hover above their nests 
 on noiseless wings. Yet lower, the blue and 
 shining deep beats against the iron b^ses of the 
 hills, and moans among the caverned fissures 
 where the seal and the otter lodge." 
 
 Now, considered merely as writing, the sen- 
 tences we have quoted have distinct and sub- 
 stantial merits ; they possess music and colour, 
 and a firm, consistent movement. But it seems 
 to us that a man properly possessed with his 
 subject, and with an instinct for the heart of it, 
 would not have chosen to begin after this fashion. 
 Especially would he have avoided the poetical 
 extracts and the sentence contained in brackets ; 
 for that kind of by-play — that irrelevant think- 
 ing within thinking — does not occur to one 
 whose loins are sufficiently girt for his work. 
 When a man is in haste, or is impelled onward 
 by a strong motive, he docs not gather the 
 flowers that grow by the wayside, and compare 
 their beauties. All this kind of thing is a 
 
 m
 
 2/6 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 literary iniquity, and a face of flint should be set 
 against it. It has become far too common of late. 
 It increases the bulk of books without increasing 
 their value. It obstructs the literary thorough- 
 fare as crinoline obstructs the material one. 
 Shirley is too frequently a sinner in this way ; 
 and it is no palliation of his fault that he sins 
 gracefully, fancifully, eloquently, because lesser 
 men, who have neither his grace nor his fancy, 
 may be tempted to follow his example. 
 
 Having indicated what seems to us the de- 
 fect of the book, we are prepared now to give 
 " Nugae Criticse " our warmest welcome. It is 
 thoroughly fresh, genial, and pleasant ; and that 
 portion of it which directly relates to out-door 
 life — happily no inconsiderable portion — is uni- 
 formly excellent. Shirley is a sportsman ; he is 
 fond of the aquatic tribes of birds ; he is familiar 
 with the scenery of our eastern and northern 
 coasts ; and his opening paper, " At the Seaside," 
 is written with humour, vividness, spirit, and a 
 quite unusual power of picturesque presentment. 
 It is a true vacation paper. As we read, the 
 hum of the city dies away, and we are trans- 
 ported to the chalky cliffs, on whose scalps are 
 corn fields with scarlet poppies intermixed, and
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 277 
 
 beyond a whole horizonful of ocean, sleek and 
 blue in the lazy summer day. Although every- 
 thing is silent, the silence does not arise from 
 absence of life. A gun, and the rocks are cla- 
 morous with startled sea-fowls. Shirley has 
 affectionately watched the habits of gulls, ducks, 
 divers, loons, herons, and cormorants, and the 
 swan that comes out of the northern twilight ; 
 and since Christopher North dropped his pen, 
 we have had no better ornithological writing. 
 Take this photograph of the cormorant, or 
 scrath, as he is locally called : — 
 
 " The scratJi is not by any means a lively bird ; 
 he entertains serious, not to say gloomy, views 
 on most of the questions of the day. I have 
 seen the cormorants who frequent this rock sit 
 together for hours without uttering a syllable to 
 each other — in a kind of dyspeptic dejection. 
 Apart from his sentiments upon serious subjects, 
 this is probably the result of a system of over- 
 feeding ; for, even with the most perfect diges- 
 tion, such excessive eating must tell upon the 
 spirits. They are, moreover, somewhat specu- 
 lative birds, and employ their leisure in \'arious 
 impracticable experiments. They seem, in par-
 
 2/8 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 ticular, to entertain a theory that they are in- 
 tended by Providence to live upon invisible 
 pinnacles, where a titmouse could not find foot- 
 ing. The consequences may be easily foreseen. 
 No sooner is the unwieldy monster seated than 
 he loses his balance, and a fierce and violent 
 flapping of his sable pinions is required to pre- 
 vent him from falling to the bottom. Nothing 
 can convince him of the fallacy of the notion ; 
 and it would be difficult to determine what satis- 
 faction or enjoyment he can derive from an 
 insane proceeding like this, which so ill consorts, 
 moreover, with the sepulchral gravity of his 
 appearance." 
 
 Nothing can well be better in its light way 
 than this ; and the affectionately-humorous ex- 
 aggeration brings out, far more vividly than any 
 cold and exact description could do, the charac- 
 teristics of the grave, funereal fowl. Shirley enters 
 into the heart of his cormorant as Mr Carlyle 
 enters into the heart of his hero, and works out 
 from that. And this peculiar kind of humor- 
 ous and picturesque presentment is not con- 
 fined to the passage we have quoted. It per- 
 vades more or less every page of the opening
 
 ESS A VIS TS, OL D AND NE \\\ 279 
 
 paper, which, as we have said, is the plcasantest 
 and ablest of his Essays. 
 
 The most important papers in the book, so 
 far, at least, as actual substance and gravity of 
 treatment are concerned, are the three entitled, 
 "People who are not Respectable;" "A Lay 
 Sermon on Nonconformity, a plea for Liberty ;" 
 and " William the Silent, the earliest Teacher of 
 Toleration." The first deals with Lola Montez, 
 Heine, and the Abbe Domenech, and reveals an 
 audacious generosity of sentiment ; the beauty 
 and the poet are tenderly dealt with ; and, when 
 rebuked, there is a sneaking kindness in the 
 rebuke. The second is a reply to two questions 
 — " In the first place. How is the State, and in the 
 second place. How is the Church, to treat Non- 
 conformity V while the third relates in a rapid 
 way — somewhat after Lord Macaulay's fashion — 
 the career of Orange the taciturn, and rises into 
 panegyric towards the close on that prince's 
 tolerant and unpersecuting spirit in the midst 
 of an intolerant and persecuting time. These 
 Essays depend one upon the other; and, however 
 diverse in subject, they form one argument. 
 This age, it appears, is not tolerant enough ; the 
 persecuting spirit is as virulent as ever, the
 
 28o ESSA V/STS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 methods of martyrdom are only changed. Hear 
 Shirley on the matter : " In many circles you 
 would incur more odium if you told its members 
 that you read ' Maurice ' and ' Jowett,' and be- 
 lieved them to be good and honest men, than if 
 you picked their pockets. Holy hands are lifted 
 in pious horror ; an inquisition is held upon the 
 condition-of-your-soul question ; your opinions, 
 which you have always supposed to be at least 
 harmless, charitable, and good-natured, if no- 
 thing better, are pronounced ' unsound ' and 
 * unsafe ' (words of evil import) by the assembled 
 saints ; and you are then solemnly tied to the 
 stake and burned — fortunately in effigy only." 
 " The victim may indeed retreat from the family 
 and the sect, sever local ties, which daily become 
 more oppressive and unmanageable, and calmly 
 appeal to a wider tribunal. But the rent is very 
 trying to mortal nerves ; the heartstrings some- 
 times crack in the venture." So much for social 
 martyrdom. Now for the question between 
 Nonconformity and the Church. " A national 
 Church, in the largest sense, is the development 
 of the devotional side of the national mind. 
 .... If this definition be accurate — and we are 
 convinced that it is — then it follows that such
 
 BSSAVISTS, OLD AND NEW. 2S1 
 
 an institution, maintained it may be out of the 
 public purse, should be devoted to the service of 
 the public ; and that any limitations of caste, or 
 of doctrine, when not absolutely indispensable, 
 are inconsistent with its design, and with the 
 purpose for which it exists. Any condition which 
 prevents any religious citizen from becoming a 
 minister (and thereby partaking of the emolu- 
 ments to which he would otherwise be entitled), 
 or a member (and thereby partaking of the privi- 
 leges which communion confers), \s, prima facie, 
 imperious and indefensible. A clear necessity 
 alone can justify its retention. Is there, then, to 
 be no limitation ? Are men of all opinions and of 
 no opinions to find shelter within the sanctuary ? 
 To such a question the reply is obvious. A 
 national Church cannot be permitted to lose its re- 
 presentative character. The national Church of a 
 Christian people must remain distinctively Chris- 
 tian, just as the national Church of a Mahometan 
 people must remain distinctively Mahometan." 
 Elsewhere, we find that "the clergyman, when 
 he has once 'taken' the Articles, undergoes a 
 species of petrifaction ; he becomes a fossil 
 thenceforth to the day of his death. The rich 
 and invaluable lessons which experience teaches
 
 282 ESSA YISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 must not be learned by him ; he must close his 
 eyes upon the growing light ; his moral and 
 intellectual nature, like Joshua's sun at Ajalon, 
 * must come to a full stop.' " 
 
 In a paper like the present, it is not advisable 
 to enter into these deep matters of controversy, 
 and all the less advisable that they have already 
 been discussed at length elsewhere. It may be 
 permitted to be said, however, " that a national 
 Church, in the largest sense, is the develop- 
 ment of the devotional side of the national 
 mind," just as a standing army is the develop- 
 ment of the fighting side of the national char- 
 acter ; and that Church and army, to be effective, 
 must possess identity of purpose and uniformity 
 of discipline. To have persons of peculiar 
 doctrinal views within the national Church, 
 who give expression to these peculiar doctrines, 
 would be quite as hurtful, and would lead to a 
 like confusion, as to have persons in the ranks 
 who have peculiar notions as to how marching 
 is to be conducted, and who assert their indivi- 
 duality in the method of discharging their fire- 
 locks. If persons of peculiar notions on certain 
 doctrinal points are to be 'admitted into the 
 Church, you turn the Church itself into a bear
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 283 
 
 garden ; it immediately begins to fight within 
 itself, instead of fighting against the evil which 
 is in the world. Shirley very properly says, "that 
 the national Church of a Christian people must 
 be distinctively Christian ;" but who is to be the 
 judge of what is distinctively Christian ? The 
 disbeliever in the Divinity of Christ calls himself 
 a Christian ; the person enjoying the gift of the 
 unknown tongues calls himself a Christian ; the 
 believer in purgatory and transubstantiation calls 
 himself a Christian ; and as all these accept the 
 Scriptures, to some extent at least, as an autho- 
 rity, and are certainly neither Mahometans, 
 Pagans, nor Jews, it would be difficult to rob 
 them of the appellation. But could a Church 
 exist with these discordant and inflammable 
 elements in its bosom ? What is " distinctively 
 Christian" must, like every other dispute in the 
 world, be decided practically by the majorities. 
 And if men holding peculiar notions of doctrine 
 or discipline shall have entered the Church, or if, 
 after entering, they find that, from whatever 
 reason, they cannot conscientiously give intel- 
 lectual adherence to the standards of the Church, 
 and if, in consequence of this discordance be- 
 tween themselves and their brethren, they are
 
 284 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 uncomfortable, and ill at ease, what is the course 
 they should adopt ? They have placed them- 
 selves, or they find themselves, in a false position, 
 and their duty is to get out of that false position 
 with as little delay as possible. Honesty, com- 
 fort, reverence for their own consciences and for 
 the consciences of others, alike counsel resigna- 
 tion of their positions in the Church. 
 
 With respect to the social martyrdom to 
 which Shirley refers, it may be said that, from 
 the very constitution of things, such martyrdoms 
 have always been and ever will be. The man 
 who acts in the teeth of public opinion — and it 
 matters nothing whether that opinion is local or 
 general — must, as a matter of necessity, meet 
 opposition : he is like a ship sailing against a 
 head wind. A certain conformity with the exist- 
 ing order of things is required of all men, under 
 penalties of discomfort. A man cannot even 
 take mustard to his mutton, or eat peas with his 
 knife, with impunity. This is very intolerant, it 
 is true ; but tolerance to the man who chooses to 
 eat peas with his knife is zV/tolerance to twenty 
 people who may be sitting at dinner with him. 
 Shirley tells us that there are certain circles in 
 which a man incurs odium by reading " Maurice"
 
 ESSAV/STS, OLD AND NEW. 2.S: 
 
 and " Jowett." It is unquestionably true. And 
 if a man chooses to attire himself in the jacket 
 of a harlequin, he will incur odium in every circle 
 he enters. If a man acts in opposition to the 
 opinions, the prejudices, the traditions of the 
 people with whom he mixes, he is just as certain 
 to incur opposition and pain as he is to hurt 
 himself if he runs his head against a wall. The 
 nonconformist never did tread on roses ; and till 
 the constitution of human nature changes, on 
 roses he will never tread. And this fate awaits 
 not only the nonconformist in religion, but all 
 nonconformists alike. The nonconformist in hats 
 is liable to be stared at in the street ; and it is 
 possible that he may overhear the remarks of 
 irreverent urchins as he passes by. The noncon- 
 formist in politics has his own annoyances : Peel 
 had hard words and ungenerous insinuations to 
 bear when he split with his party. The noncon- 
 formist, if he has any knowledge of men, will 
 expect some little trouble and misrepresentation 
 to fall to his lot, and he will not care to make a 
 noise about it. If the path of the nonconformi.st 
 were perfectly smooth, what merit would there 
 be in his nonconformity ? 
 
 Several essays in Shirley's book, other than
 
 286 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 those we have mentioned, are of great merit, 
 especially " The Last Word on Lord Macaulay," 
 which indicates with clearness the limitations 
 and defects of the great writer — altogether the 
 best piece of critical writing which he has pro- 
 duced. " Terra Santa ; a Peep into Italy," con- 
 tains reading of the pleasantest kind ; and the 
 allusions it contains to Mr Hawthrone and Mrs 
 Browning are characteristic — for, after all, this 
 writer sees the world clearest through the window 
 of books. On whatever subject he writes, you 
 are sure to come into contact with the writers 
 he most admires. In " Nugae Criticse," Shirley 
 touches on many subjects, and always with 
 grace and true literary skill ; but we confess that 
 we like him best " at the sea-side :" his vagrant, 
 desultory, yet always pleasant and picturesque 
 vein, flows freest when he has the eastern coast 
 to deal with — the sea and the sea-fowl. He is 
 always at his best when out of doors. 
 
 A. K. H. B. gathered his reputation in Eraser; 
 is, we understand, exceedingly popular in Eng- 
 land, and prodigiously so across the Atlantic. 
 That this popularity arises from a certain merit 
 discoverable in his Essays, there can, of course.
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 287 
 
 be no matter of question ; he is an exceedingly 
 clever writer, he" has a happy knack of putting 
 things, he is always readable. Yet it would be 
 difficult to explain by what charm he leads us 
 along his pages. One only feels that the charm 
 exists. A. K. H B. is as egotistical as Mon- 
 taigne, but in no other particular docs he re- 
 semble him. There is great sameness in his 
 papers: reading them is like walking on an 
 American prairie ; green undulation follows on 
 green undulation, beginning nowhere, ending no- 
 where, without prospect, without outlook. He 
 starts on his subject without a pocket-compass, 
 and, after a long circuit, he arrives at the place 
 from which he set out ; and the worst of it is, 
 he arrives as empty-handed as when he started. 
 He could perform the feat of voyaging round the 
 world and bringing home nothing. A great 
 element of success in a writer is peculiarity, and 
 A. K. H. B. has his peculiarities. Once possessed 
 of an idea, he can make it go farther than any 
 of his contemporaries. Give him a bit of gold, 
 and no man living will beat it out into a broader 
 and thinner leaf. Mount him on a platitude, and 
 he will make it carry him across a county. In 
 his Essays he laughs occasionally at Mr Martin
 
 288 ESSA VISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Farquhar Tupper ; but he is related to the body 
 of contemporary prose very much as Mr Tupper 
 is related to the body of contemporary verse, 
 and the popularity of each arises from similar 
 causes. For the mass of readers, it is a pleasant 
 thing to feel that they are as wise as the author 
 they are reading, and the mass of A. K. H. B.'s 
 readers are made happy in this way. 
 
 A. K. H. B. is an egotist ; he is continually 
 writing about his Essays, his sermons, his 
 methods of composition, his garden, his children, 
 his man-servant — if that functionary dips fur- 
 tively into Erasers Magazine when his master is 
 done with it, he must be gratified by the mani- 
 fold recognition of his existence — his own horses, 
 or the horses of his friends. Now, to egotism in 
 itself no man will object, provided the egotist is 
 great or peculiar. We never weary of Mon- 
 taigne or of Charles Lamb when they are speak- 
 ing about themselves. Unhappily, however, 
 A. K. H. B. is neither great nor peculiar ; he is 
 simply a clever, fluent man, well read up in cur- 
 rent literature, conversant with its " slang," in the 
 dexterous use of which one-half of his smartness 
 consists, perfectly ready to kick a man when it 
 is the fashion to kick him — witness his frequent
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 289 
 
 sneers at Mr Tupper and Mr Wordy— and 
 who can prattle in a pleasant way enough 
 "Concerning Hurry and Leisure," "Tidiness," 
 and certain "Blisters of Humanity." Egotism 
 of the light, trifling kind, which A. K. H. B. 
 indulges in, is apt to weary one after a little. 
 In a very little while, one gets irritated at his 
 familiar, hail-fellow-well-met, dawdling, saun- 
 tering ways, disgusted rather with his man- 
 servant and horses, and a little inclined to 
 request him, in a somewhat peremptory man- 
 ner, to say his say "concerning" whatever sub- 
 ject he may have in hand, in a direct, straight- 
 forward fashion, and have done. He cannot, 
 without protest, be permitted to take the airs 
 of a Montaigne. If he writes " Concerning the 
 Paring of Nails," let him discuss the general 
 subject with what light may be given him, and 
 cease to linger so lovingly over his own. 
 
 And yet, after all, there is a certain charm in 
 A. K. H. B.'s Essays. He writes for the most 
 part with grace and purity ; he possesses fancy, 
 liveliness, and his papers have now and again 
 touches of shrewdness, insight, and common 
 sense. If some savage critic would but lay hold 
 of him, and whip the pestilent coxcombry out
 
 290 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 of him, he would do the world some service, and 
 confer on A. K. H. B. himself the greatest benefit 
 he will ever receive from a fellow-mortal. For 
 in him the elements of an excellent writer do 
 incontestably exist. He possesses " faculties " 
 which hitherto " he hath not used," or only in a 
 perfunctory way and at long intervals. He can 
 be direct, suggestive, pathetic even, when he 
 chooses, but the ^.misfortune is he so seldom 
 chooses. The best thing which he has written 
 is a little paper entitled " Gone," absolutely 
 without grimace or wilful irrelevance, and into 
 the pathetic undertone of which neither himself, 
 nor his garden, nor his next Sunday's sermon, 
 nor even his man-servant, does for one moment 
 intrude. In the following passage, A. K. H. B. 
 is at his best, perhaps : — 
 
 " Every one knows what Dr Johnson wrote 
 about 'The Last' It is, of course, a question 
 of individual associations, and how it may strike 
 different minds ; but I stand up for the unri- 
 valled reach and pathos of the short word 
 ' Gone.' 
 
 " It is curious that the saddest and most 
 touching of human thoughts, when we run it up
 
 ESS A VISTS, OLD AND^ NEW. 291 
 
 to its simplest form, is of so homely a thing as 
 a material object existing in a certain space, 
 and then removing from that space to another. 
 That is the essential idea of ' Gone.' 
 
 " Yet, in the commonest way, there is some- 
 thing touching in that : something touching in 
 the sight of vacant space, once filled by almost 
 anything. You feel a blankness in the land- 
 scape where a tree is gone that you have known 
 all your life. You are conscious of a vague 
 sense of something lacking where even a post is 
 pulled up that you remember always in the centre 
 of a certain field. You feel this yet more when 
 some familiar piece of furniture is taken away 
 from a room which you know well. Here that 
 clumsy easy-chair used to stand : and it is gone. 
 You feel yourself an interloper, standing in the 
 space where it stood so long. It touches you 
 still more to look at the empty chair which you 
 remember so often filled by one who will never 
 fill it more. You stand in a large railway 
 station : you have come to see a train depart. 
 There is a great bustle on the platform, and 
 there is a great quantity of human life, and of 
 the interests and cares of human life, in those 
 twelve or fourteen carriages, and filling that
 
 292 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 little space between the rails. You stand by 
 and watch the warm interiors of the carriages, 
 looking so large and so full, and as if they had 
 so much in them. There are people of every 
 kind of aspect, children and old folk, multitudes 
 of railway-rugs, of carpet-bags, of portmanteaus, 
 of parcels, of newspapers, of books, of magazines. 
 At length you hear the last bell ; then comes that 
 silent, steady pull, which is always striking, though 
 seen ever so often. The train glides away : 
 it is gone. You stand and look vacantly at the 
 place where it was. How little the space looks 
 — how blank the air ! There are the two rails, 
 just four feet eight and a half inches apart ; how 
 close together they look ! You can hardly think 
 that there was so much of life, and of the inte- 
 rests of life, in so little room. You feel the 
 power upon the average human being of the 
 simple, commonplace fact, that something has 
 been here, and is gone." 
 
 There is not very much in this, perhaps, but it is 
 nicely felt ; and the illustration, if familiar to all, 
 cannot fail to be felt by all. Most of us have 
 seen a railway train depart, and when nothing 
 remains but bare rails and empty space, have
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 293 
 
 been conscious, in an obscure way, of the subtly 
 mingled strangeness and regret which A. K. H. B. 
 so tenderly indicates. 
 
 Mr Patterson's "Essays in History and Art" 
 contain less of the personal element than the 
 writings of Shirley or A. K. H. B., and are on 
 that account perhaps less interesting. We hear 
 nothing of his peculiar moods, of the house he 
 Hves in, or the places he visits. He does not 
 begin a paper on the banks of a trouting stream, 
 or seated on the parapet of the Devil's Bridge, 
 with his legs dangling over, hke Shirley; nor 
 does he haunt stables, and make a writing-desk 
 of a horse's face, like A. K. H. B. He has 
 nothing of the lightness, jauntiness, and holiday 
 feehng of these gentlemen. He means work ; he 
 desires to inform rather than to amuse. The 
 more important papers in the volume — on the 
 " Ethnology of Europe," " Our Indian Empire," 
 "The National Life of China," "India, its Castes 
 and Creeds" — are laboriously and solidly done. 
 Into these Essays he has gathered the pith and 
 essence of many books ; and to people wishing 
 to be informed on these matters we do not know 
 a volume more entirely to be recommended than
 
 294 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 Mr Patterson's. The style is always clear, if at 
 times a little ornate ; and evidences of conscien- 
 tiousness and care are everywhere manifest. Mr 
 Patterson, when he has a solid, useful informa- 
 tion-subject on hand, is at his best. Certain of 
 the lighter papers — as, for instance, "Youth and 
 Summer," "Genius and Liberty" — are spoiled 
 by an Asiatic floridity of taste. A passage like 
 the following rather provokes a smile in the 
 judicious : — 
 
 "But the genius of Greece is rising in beauty 
 everywhere on land and sea — the blue ^gean, 
 gemmed with the 'sparkling Cyclades,' bearing, 
 like floating flower-baskets, the isles of Greece 
 on its calm surface. On the lovely bay-indented 
 shores of lona, where the vines are trailing in 
 festoons from tree to tree, lighting the emerald 
 woods with their purple clusters, sits merry 
 Anacreon, singing of love and wine in undying 
 strains. Light-hearted old man, sing on! — until, 
 in luckless hour, the choking grapestone end at 
 once thy lays, thy loves, and thy life. The lofty 
 strains of Alcaeus and Simonides make the .^Egean 
 shores to re-echo their undying hatred of a 
 tyrannic power ; while on her Lesbian isle, hap-
 
 £SSA YISTS, OLD AND NEW. 295 
 
 less Sappho, weary of a fame that cannot bring 
 her love, leaps from the cliffs of Leucus into the 
 sea, but lives for ever in her country's memory 
 as the Tenth Muse." 
 
 This is a kind of eloquence which convulses 
 the debating societies of young men in their 
 teens, and the frequency of its appearance in 
 these Essays proves that Mr Patterson retains in 
 middle life all the juvenility and freshness of his 
 youthful spirit. 
 
 It is with a certain proud sorrow that we 
 regard "Essays, Historical and Critical," by 
 Hugh Miller. Six years have passed since the 
 writer was borne to his grave, and his place in 
 literature is as well defined now as it was on the 
 day in which he was laid in " The Grange;" and 
 future years, with a sense of the sacredness of 
 their task, will keep clear from all intrusion 
 Miller's place in the literature of his country. 
 The British Valhalla will be crowded indeed 
 when room cannot be found for him. Miller was 
 not only an accomplished journalist and able 
 geologist, a writer singularly acute and pic- 
 turesque, but he was something beyond all these
 
 296 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 — a great man. He possessed, in some degree, 
 that largeness of limb and majesty of mental 
 lineament which distinguished Burns and Scott, 
 Chalmers and John Wilson. He came up from 
 the red sandstone quarries of Cromarty into his 
 fame, as Burps came into his from the Ayrshire 
 harvest fields. Scotland is proud to think that 
 she is peculiarly the mother of such men ; and if 
 Burns was her first-born and greatest, Hugh 
 Miller was her second, and only in stature a little 
 lower than the first. The present volume of 
 Essays is entirely selected from the file of the 
 Witness newspaper ; consequently it does not so 
 much represent Miller at his best, as in his usual 
 working attire. These papers were not written 
 by him with a view to separate publication ; they 
 were composed in his usual course of duty as a 
 journalist ; and, as newspaper articles, their con- 
 cision, their wit, their fancy, their richness of 
 sentence, are quite wonderful. The opening 
 Essay, on " The New Year," is an exquisite poem. 
 The visit of her Majesty to Edinburgh in 1842 
 was an interesting event, but it is doubly so when 
 we see it through the medium of Mr Miller's 
 graphic and picturesque prose. In the opening 
 sentences — so exquisite in their natural analogies
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 297 
 
 — of the article entitled " The Echoes of the 
 World," an article which concerns itself with the 
 death of Dr Chalmers, we have the truest poetry 
 as well as the most impressive statement of 
 fact :— 
 
 " Has the reader ever heard a piece of heavy 
 ordnance fired amid the mountains of our 
 country ? First, there is the ear-stunning report 
 of the piece itself — the prime mover of those 
 airy undulations that travel outwards, circle be- 
 yond circle, towards the far horizon ; then some 
 hoary precipice, that rises tall and solemn in the 
 immediate neighbourhood, takes up the sound, 
 and it comes rolling back from its rough front in 
 thunder, like a giant wave flung far sea-ward from 
 the rock against which it has broken ; then some 
 more distant hill becomes vocal, and then another, 
 and another, and anon another ; and then there 
 is a slight pause, as if all were over — the undula- 
 tions are travelling unbroken along some flat 
 moor or across some expansive lake, or over 
 some deep valley, filled, haply, by some long, 
 wide, and roaring arm of the sea ; and then the 
 more remote mountains lift up their voices in 
 mysterious mutterings, now lower, now louder,
 
 298 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 
 
 now more abrupt, anon more prolonged, each, as 
 it recedes, taking up the tale in closer succession 
 to the one that had previously spoken, till at 
 length their distinct utterances are lost in one 
 low, continuous sound, that at last dies out amid 
 the shattered peaks of the desert wilderness, and 
 unbroken stillness settles over the scene as at first. 
 Through a scarcely voluntary exertion of that 
 faculty of analogy and comparison, so natural to 
 the human mind that it converts all the existences 
 of the physical world into forms and expressions 
 of the world intellectual, we have oftener than 
 once thought of the phenomenon and its atten- 
 dant results as strikingly representative of effects 
 produced by the death of Chalmers. It is an 
 event which has, we find, rendered vocal the 
 echoes of the world, and they are still returning 
 upon us, after measured intervals, according to 
 the distances." 
 
 This is wonderful writing ; and when Miller 
 proceeds to complete his analogy by describing 
 how, from every quarter of the world, there came 
 back here, in a murmur of grief and admiration, 
 the report of the death of Chalmers, the effect of 
 the whole is singularly grand and complete. It
 
 ESSAYISTS, OLD AND NEW. 299 
 
 is contemplated, we notice from the preface, that 
 should the present collection of Essays meet 
 with success, other and similar volumes may be 
 gathered from the file of the Witness. Of the 
 success of the book there can be no manner of 
 doubt; so that we presume we may soon look for 
 a second volume, and, perhaps, a third.
 
 A SPRING CHANSON. 
 
 |0 the amber east the happy merle 
 From tree-top whistles clear — 
 " What Love is to young man and girl 
 
 Spring-time is to the year." 
 While in the wind the poplar bent 
 
 Like a torch of emerald flame ; 
 'Neath the flowering currants' coloured light 
 
 A brilliant chaffinch came : 
 And he hardly alit, ere away he flew 
 In a twinkle of yellow, green, and blue, 
 And when I saw him, I knew, I knew 
 That Spring, bringing favour to bird and beast, 
 
 Mosses to thatches of cottage and shed, 
 Iris to mirrors of morning dew. 
 Sunset colours to west, sunrise colours to east. 
 
 New green to old furrows of churchyard dead. 
 Would bring an ode to the poet too. 
 Or a chanson at the least. 
 
 When Spring came to my garden
 
 A SPRING CHANSON. 301 
 
 (The wintry world's retriever !) 
 The crocuses stood in their ranks, hke a guard 
 
 Of honour to receive her. 
 And now in Spring's inconstant smile, 
 
 In Spring's inconstant light, 
 One rebus bush is a rosy cloud, 
 
 Its neighbour a cloud of white. 
 The ivies have clomb o'er the cottage rafter : 
 The gummy buds of the chestnut glitter : 
 On the southern wall I mark a titter 
 Of bloom — in a month, or so, hereafter 
 'Twill be all covered o'er with a blossoming 
 laughter. 
 And the ground beneath an exquisite litter 
 Of shed pink and white — and I know who 
 Will then sit in the noon, the paticntcst 
 knitter 
 (My dearest, my dearest, who is it but you !) 
 Sunshine-kissed, blossom-powdered ; and, while 
 the wind blows 
 Warm and warmer, around her the hyacinth 
 
 swells 
 To break into clusters of coralline bells, 
 Princess rose-bud, green-hooded, to open to rose. 
 
 In the Spring-time's lovely thronging
 
 302 A SPRING CHANSON. 
 
 Lurk a sacred thirst and longing. 
 Every deep earth-hidden root 
 Yearns to turn to flower and fruit ; 
 Every hen-bird east and west 
 Pines for eggs beneath her breast ; 
 On all harmless creeping things 
 Comes desire of painted wings ; 
 And the brightest vision hovers 
 In the eyes of happy lovers ; 
 The burst of apple-blossom brave 
 Hides the newly-mounded grave ; 
 The voice of happy bird in brake 
 Soothes the oft-recurring ache. 
 Spring is breathing through my hair, 
 Spring is smiling in the air ; 
 And in her deep delight I share 
 
 With far-removed things — 
 The solitary-mining mole, 
 The lark, a disembodied soul 
 
 That, lost in heaven, sings. 
 
 O Spring that bids the crocus 
 
 Uplift its coloured lamp. 
 That with the wind-flower lights the wood, 
 
 With marigold the swamp. 
 That woos from out the apple-bough
 
 A SPRING CHANSON. 303 
 
 The perfumed white and red — 
 Breaks the sod to daisies under my foot, 
 
 Hangs a musical heaven o'er-head — 
 Oh Spring, Spring, I would meet thee 
 
 The happiest man alive 
 If— as once — I could but greet thee 
 
 With the heart of twenty-five, 
 Which was hermit of its sweetness 
 
 As of honey is the hive ! 
 
 Oh youth, youth, youth, 
 
 More beautiful than truth — 
 The truth that checks the blood, and makes the 
 temples grey : 
 
 The light of thy sunrise 
 
 Dwells deep in memory's eyes, 
 And I feel as bare as winter in the thick leaf- 
 coming May. 
 
 Oh youth, youth, youth. 
 
 Time has neither rest nor ruth. 
 
 Spring enkindles wood and plain 
 
 But it passes heart and brain. 
 
 Spring, above the mountain crag, 
 
 Waves the morning's fiery flag, 
 
 Draws the evening amethyst, — 
 
 Time has staled the lips I kissed
 
 304 A SPRING CHANSON. 
 
 In such passion undissembled 
 
 That its very rapture trembled. 
 
 Spring may walk o'er daisies spread, 
 
 With a skylark over head ; 
 
 Her garments scented with the May ; 
 
 Round her footsteps lambs at play. 
 
 But she is alien, she is foreign : 
 
 Her delight I have no store in. 
 
 I regard her as a child 
 
 Singing in her spirits wild. 
 
 Dancing in the sheer excess 
 
 Of a thoughtless happiness. 
 
 Her smile is bright, but very shallow. 
 
 More I love September's yellow : 
 
 Morns of dew-strung gossamer, 
 
 Thoughtful days without a stir, 
 
 Rooky clangours, brazen leaves. 
 
 Stubbles dotted o'er with sheaves, 
 
 More than Spring's bright un-control 
 
 Suit the Autumn of the soul. 
 
 Who would choose the giddy girl. 
 
 In her spirits' endless whirl, 
 
 Before the calm, deep-thoughted woman, 
 
 With a heart entirely human } 
 
 From summit of thy slowly-greening tree.
 
 A SPRING CHANSON. 305 
 
 Sing to the breaking east, oh happy merle, 
 Scatter rich jewel and melodious pearl, 
 
 Then close in a thick-warbled ecstasy ! 
 
 Sing to the Spring— but through the Spring I 
 look 
 
 And see, when fields are bare, the woodlands 
 pale, 
 
 And hear a sad un-matcd redbreast wail, 
 In beechen russets by a leaden brook. 
 For I am tortured by a boding eye 
 
 That, gazing on the morning's glorious grain. 
 
 Beholds late shreds of fiery sunset stain 
 The marble pallor of a western sky. 
 Sweet is thy song, oh merle ! and sweetly sung 
 
 Thy forefathers in our forefathers' ears ; 
 
 And this — far more than all — thy song endears 
 In that it knits the old world with the young. 
 Men live and die, the song remains ; and when 
 
 I list the passion of thy vernal breath, 
 
 Methinks thou singest best to Love and 
 Death— 
 To happy Lovers and to dying Men. 
 
 May, 1866. 
 
 U
 
 EDINBURGH. 
 
 [On the following piece, Alexander Smith was occupied in some 
 intermittent way, when seized by fatal illness. He intended 
 it as a companion poem to his fine Lyric " Glasgow." As 
 the one City had been treated of, as endeared to him by 
 associations of youth and early passion, the other was now 
 to be dealt with as the home of his manhood and mature 
 affections, the place where essentially his life was lived, 
 where in all probability he might look for the solemn advent 
 of death. Thus it was that he himself spoke of it. In the 
 verses as left, this scheme of the poem seems scarce even 
 indicated. As in many parts exceedingly imperfect, I had 
 some hesitation as to here including them ; but finding my 
 own strong feeling that they should be given approved by 
 the advice of friends on whose judgment I could rely, I 
 decided they should be inserted. Certain omissions were 
 suggested ; but as to these there was no clear unanimity of 
 opinion ; and, on the whole, it has seemed best to give the 
 piece just as it was left by the Poet. It is to be judged as 
 merely a fragment, and first rude, hasty, draught. As 
 such, it is hoped it will be thought to have merit enough to 
 justify its appearance ; the true lyrical life and movement, 
 and the undefinable touch of the Poet are perhaps through- 
 out sufficiently marked in it, with all its obvious sins of 
 imperfection and incoherence. 
 
 Had the writer lived to complete his plan, a great deal 
 more would have been written ; the whole being then re-
 
 EDINBURGH. 307 
 
 garded as a sort of quarry, out of wliich was to come 
 the finished work. A vigorous recast would have been 
 made ; weali or superfluous verses would have been excised ; 
 the general arrangement — pretty much at first left to itself — 
 would have been fixed, links of connection being furnished 
 where such were needed; and the whole poem would in 
 much have altered its aspect. As it stands, it would be 
 plainly unfair to subject it to anything like rigour of criti- 
 cism ; sufficient if, as a rude sketch, it is held of interest 
 enough as the last fragment from the pen of the Poet, to 
 justify its insertion here. — Ed.] 
 
 H me, the years they come and go ! 
 Twelve times the snowdrop o'er the snow 
 Hath shiver'd ; June hath sway'd 
 Rich rose-branch, full-blown rose and bud ; 
 Broad sun-flower from its disc of blood 
 
 A sun-like glory ray'd — 
 Since, urged by passionate unrest, 
 I sang the City of the West. 
 
 Grown staider, somewhat now I scorn 
 The mavis of my early morn. 
 
 Clear-singing 'gainst the sheen ; 
 Care, that sleeps late, and early stirs. 
 Like daily feet of villagers 
 
 Across the village green, 
 Hath worn its track— and youth's delight 
 An Autumn swallow, taken flight.
 
 3o8 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Another and a nobler Me 
 Dwells in regretful memory, 
 
 Bright-eyed, and golden-hair'd ; 
 No more I breathe melodious song ; 
 Yet to these later years belong 
 
 Moods, passions, unimpair'd : 
 Still lives the rapture of the eye, 
 Dim city, hanging in the sky ! 
 
 The dazzling cataract, strong and loud ; 
 The reddening of the morning cloud ; 
 
 Ben-Blaaven's craggy spears. 
 And ridge, half lost in misty steam ; 
 Brown tangle-beds, that heave and gleam 
 
 Idly round stony piers ; 
 Rude turf hut, girl in scarlet cloak 
 Set in an azure film of smoke — 
 
 I love, as I did long ago ; — 
 
 Yea, better ; for I've come to know 
 
 The loveliest space of sky 
 Is that which silently o'erbends 
 Old apple-blossom'd gable-ends, 
 
 Wherein men live and die. 
 The world is lovely ; but the sight 
 Of man adds pathos to delight.
 
 EDINBURGH. 309 
 
 Girt with thy cloudy equipage, 
 Swart city, thou wert once the cage 
 
 In which I sang — Afar 
 I cannot hear thy solemn roar 
 Ascending, when day's toil is o'er, 
 
 To meet the evening star. 
 My later home is still and fair 
 With mournfulness of sunset air. ' 
 
 Edina, high in heaven wan. 
 Towered, templed, Metropolitan, 
 
 Waited upon by hills. 
 River, and wide-spread ocean — tinged 
 By April light, or draped and fringed 
 
 As April vapour wills, 
 Thou hangest, like a Cyclop's dream, 
 High in the shifting weather-gleam. 
 
 Fair art thou when above thy head 
 The mistless firmament is spread ; 
 
 But when the twilight's screen 
 Draws glimmering round thy towers and spires, 
 And thy lone bridge, uncrown'd by fires, 
 
 Hangs in the dim ravine, 
 Thou art a very Persian tale — 
 Oh, Mirza's vision, Bagdad's vale !
 
 3IO EDINBURGH. 
 
 The spring time stains with emerald 
 Thy Castle's precipices bald ; 
 
 Within thy streets and squares 
 The sudden summer camps, and blows 
 The plenteous chariot-shaken rose ; 
 
 Or, lifting unawares 
 My eyes from out thy central strife, 
 Lo, far off, harvest-brazen Fife ! 
 
 When, rain-drops gemming tree and plant, 
 The rainbow is thy visitant, 
 
 Lovely as on the moors ; 
 When sunset flecks with loving ray 
 Thy wilderness of gables grey. 
 
 And hoary embrasures ; 
 When great Sir Walter's moon-blanch'd shrine, 
 Rich carved, as Melrose, gleams divine, 
 
 I know thee ; and I know thee, too, 
 On winter nights, when 'gainst the blue 
 
 Thy high, gloom-wilder'd ridge 
 Breaks in a thousand splendours ; lamps 
 Gleam broadly in the valley damps ; 
 
 Thy air-suspended bridge 
 Shines steadfast ; and the modern street 
 Looks on, star-fretted, loud with feet.
 
 EDINBURGH. 311 
 
 Once, on a Royal Nuptial Eve, 
 I saw thy bulk of Castle heave,* 
 
 In fire and vapour roU'd ; 
 St Giles wore strange and gem-like light ; 
 St George's dome, aloft in night, 
 
 Hung like a fleece of gold ; 
 Sir Walter's shrine, 'mid rubies, beryls, 
 Glow'd with the chasten'd glow of pearls : 
 
 March wind in fitful gusts that came, 
 Made stream the wild padella flame ; 
 
 Dull came the cannon's boom : 
 Past all thy fronts of blazing pride, 
 Through streets that shone, a jubilant tide 
 
 Rolled, hued with sudden bloom, 
 As rainbow-like, through festal air. 
 Passed emerald gleam and crimson glare. 
 
 Fair art thou City, to the eye, 
 But fairer to the memory : 
 
 There is no place that breeds — 
 
 * The allusion is to the grand illumination throughout the 
 country on the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales. 
 The natural advantages of Edinburgh for such a spectacle are 
 quite unequalled ; to the utmost they were made available ; and 
 the splendour of the total effect was such, I understand, as can 
 never be forgotten by any one who witnessed it.
 
 312 EDINBURGH. 
 
 Not Venice 'neath her mellow moons, 
 When the sea-pulse of full lagoons 
 Waves all her palace weeds — 
 Such wistful thoughts of far away, 
 Of the eternal yesterday. 
 
 Within thy high-piled Canongate 
 The air is of another date ; 
 
 All speaks of ancient time : 
 Traces of gardens, dials, wells. 
 Thy dizzy gables, oyster-shells 
 
 Imbedded in the lime — 
 Thy shields above the doors of peers 
 Are old as Mary Stuart's tears. 
 
 Street haunted by the step of Knox ; 
 Darnley's long, heavy-scented locks ; 
 
 Ruthven's blood-freezing stare : 
 Dark Murray, dreaming of the crown — 
 His ride through fair Linlithgow town, 
 
 And the man waiting there 
 With loaded fuse, undreamed of — wiles 
 Of Mary, and her mermaid smiles ! 
 
 Thou saw'st Montrose's passing face 
 Shame-strike the gloating silk and lace, 
 And jeering plumes that filled
 
 EDINBURGH. 313 
 
 The balcony o'erhead ; with pride 
 
 Thou saw'st Prince Charles bare-headed ride, 
 
 While bagpipes round him shrilled, 
 And far Culloden's smoky racks 
 Hid scaffold craped, and bloody axe. 
 
 What wine hast thou known brawl be-spilt ! 
 What daggers ruddy to the hilt ! 
 
 What stately minuets 
 Walked slowly o'er thy oaken floors ! 
 What hasty kisses at thy doors ! 
 
 What banquetings and bets ! 
 What talk, o'er man that lives and errs, 
 Of double-chinned philosophers ! 
 
 Great City, every morning I 
 See thy wild fringes in the sky, 
 
 Soft-blurr'd with smoky grace : 
 Each evening note the blazing sun 
 Flush luridly thy vapours dun — 
 
 A spire athwart his face : 
 Each night I watch thy wondrous feast. 
 Like some far city of the East. 
 
 But most I love thee faint and fair, 
 Dim-pencill'd in the April air, 
 When in the dewy bush
 
 3T4 EDINBURGH. 
 
 I hear from budded thick remote 
 The rapture of the blackbird's throat, 
 
 The sweet note of the thrush ; 
 And all is shadowless and clear 
 In the uncoloured atmosphere.
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 PLAGIARISMS OF ALEXANDER SMITH. 
 
 The great majority of these so-called Plagiarisms are, 
 as instances, so frivolous, that in themselves they could 
 have won no attention. As here — 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 ' The shattering trumpet shrilleth 
 
 high. 
 They reel, they roll in clanging 
 lists." 
 
 Smith. 
 
 ' His voice that shivered the mad 
 
 trumpet's bl.ire, 
 A new raised standard to the reel- 
 ing field." 
 
 In the first case of parallelism, it is to be admitted 
 that, by both Tennyson and Smith, mention is made 
 of a trumpet — otherwise, neither in idea nor expres- 
 sion, does Smith's really nervous and noble line in the 
 least come in contact with Tennyson's, whose " shatter- 
 ing trumpet," by the way, is somewhere to be found 
 in Scott. In both of the next pair, the word " reel " 
 is used, the inference against Tennyson being clear — 
 Smith supposed convicted — of his having purloined a
 
 3i6 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 beauty from the author of " The Reel of Tulloch- 
 gorum." Again — 
 
 Coleridge. I Smith. 
 
 "To free the hollow heart from pain- "To ease the empty aching of her 
 ing." I ■ '■ 
 
 heart." 
 
 Marlow. 
 " Shallow rivers, to whose falls 
 Melodious birds sing madrigals." 
 
 Smith. 
 "A shallow river breaks o'er shallow 
 falls." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 "The long brook falling down the 
 cloven ravine." 
 
 Bailey's " Festus." 
 
 "If that's called lively, or in part, or 
 wholly, 
 The gods preserve me from your 
 melancholy." 
 
 Smith. 
 "The torrent raging down the long 
 ravine." 
 
 S.MITH. . 
 
 "If short and merry. Heaven speed 
 your tongue ; 
 If long and sad, the Lord- have 
 mercy on us." 
 
 These, and quantities of others not less ridiculous — 
 the mass being indeed of this character — are called 
 "instances of appropriation, simple and direct." As 
 I said, had such things been set forward by themselves, 
 they could only have brought ridicule on the person 
 adducing them. But interspersed were a considerable 
 number of cases of true indebtedness in way of sug- 
 gestion, in the light of which only could the others 
 seem of any significance even to a careless reader. 
 
 Firstly — in regard of these, Mr Helps' distinction is 
 to be signalised " between the man who conquers and 
 the man who steals." In adapting an image from a 
 previous Poet, and in so doing, ennobling it, genius 
 as true may be shown, as in the invention of an original 
 image. As instance 
 
 Keats. 
 
 " Gold vase embossed 
 With long-forgotten story." 
 
 Smith. 
 
 " Dropt in my path like a great cup 
 of gold 
 All rich and rough with stories of 
 the gods."
 
 APPENDIX. 317 
 
 The suggestiofi admitted probable here, the man is, 
 I venture to say, out of court as an incompetent, who 
 does not see with trenchant clearness, how, taking 
 from Keats the mere abstract notion of a vase em- 
 bossed, or with reliefs on it. Smith has concreted and 
 visualised it, as Keats had not done, into a genuinely 
 poetical image — has conquered his image from Keats, 
 not picked his pocket of it. In nearly all the other 
 instances, it will in like manner be found, that in 
 taking an image from another Poet, he proves his right 
 to do so, by some happy art of adaptation ; " conveys" 
 the gold coin, so to speak, and proves his right so to 
 do in its re-issue with the stamp and signature of 
 his own mind upon it. And the man— -as Mr Helps 
 in his happy way put it — who cannot distinguish be- 
 tween conquest of this kind, and the baser " convey- 
 ance " called theft, had greatly better, as a Critic, keep 
 himself a§ much as possible out of the eye of the 
 Public. 
 
 Secondly — such things are to be condoned, for the 
 most part, as unintentional ; reminiscences under a 
 condition of obliviscence, to no one so much to be 
 excused as to a young Poet, reading fiercely and un- 
 critically, and blessed or cursed with " a memory at 
 once tenacious and treacherous," in virtue of which 
 the thing he remembers is bona fide reproduced as his 
 own. Farther, there is absolutely no Poet — of what- 
 ever undenied originality — from whom numerous in- 
 stances of this very thing might not be cited. This 
 unconscious Commerce of Minds covers so large a 
 space in Literature, that only a rather rash man, as 
 probably a rather ignorant one, would care to stake 
 the reputation of any Poet whatever on the originality 
 of a special beauty or image. The odds would really 
 be, that if he did so, some curiously read person would 
 be able to massacre his pet beauty for him, by showing
 
 3i8 APPENDIX. 
 
 how the Poet had come by it. To give an instance from 
 Burns, commemorated by Carlyle as supreme in force 
 and effectiveness : " Our Scottish forefathers in the 
 battle-field struggled forward red-iuat-shod ; in this one 
 word, a full vision of horror and carnage, perhaps 
 too frightfully accurate for art." Well, it is fine, 
 doubtless ; but it is taken direct from the old Ballad 
 of Otterbourne — 
 
 " The Gordons gude, in English blude 
 They wat their hose and shoon." 
 
 There it is, nearly verbatim, Burns only packing the 
 thing a little closer. Various others of the finest, and 
 almost, it might be said, most characteristic strokes 
 in Burns have, in like manner, been traced to their 
 source. Such are — 
 
 " The rank is but the guinea-stamp. 
 The man's the gowd for a' that." 
 
 " A king can mak' a belted knight," etc. 
 
 " Her 'prentice han' she tried on man, 
 An' syne she made the lasses, O ! " 
 
 These and others have been clearly shown to have 
 been " conveyed " by Burns. Here is an instance, so 
 far as I know, unnoticed hitherto, and curious enough 
 to be given : 
 
 " An' my fause lover stole the rose, 
 But ah ! he left the thorn wi' me." 
 
 Compare Shakespeare, Diana in "All's Well that 
 Ends Well : " 
 
 " Ay ! so you serve us 
 Till we serve you ; but when you have our roses. 
 You basely* leave our thorns to prick ourselves. 
 And mock us with our bareness." 
 
 * In all editions *' barely;" but surely basely must almost 
 needs be what Shakespeare wrote.
 
 APPENDIX. 319 
 
 Can plunder be more palpable than here ? and sup- 
 pose twenty or thirty cases, of the like could be rapidly 
 indicated, would our sense of the essential Genius of 
 Burns be in the very least disturbed ? 
 
 Perhaps in Mr Tennyson's superb " Tithonus " 
 there is nothing more beautiful than the following; 
 and in fact I have seen it quoted by an admiring 
 critic, as eminently Tennysonian in beauty : 
 
 " And the wild team 
 Which love thee, yearning for thy yoke, arise, 
 And shake the darkness from their loosened manes, 
 Aiid beat the twili^Iit into flakes of fire." 
 
 Yet here it is pretty accurately in the germ from old 
 Marston, as given in Lamb's Specimens : 
 
 " But see, the dapple-grey coursers of the morn 
 Beat -lip the light with their bright silver hoofs. 
 And chase it through the sky." 
 
 And I think it will almost be ruled that the modern 
 Poet in conveying it — no doubt in deep unconscious- 
 ness — has lost a httle of the life of the image. No- 
 body for such a thing as this, repeated ever so, 
 would denounce Mr Tennyson as mere Plagiarist and 
 no Poet. And I suppose what is permitted to one 
 man is, in fairness, to be excused in another. 
 
 If from any Poet of his time we should have looked 
 for immunity from this kind of thing, Wordsworth is 
 perhaps the man ; but not even an originality so 
 towering as his, so determined and wilful, one might 
 almost say, could avail at all times to preserve him 
 from it. Seldom, indeed, is he to be caught stealing 
 from a contemporary writer. He admired Words- 
 worth too much to care for any of his contemporaries, 
 and, in his serene and haughty self-opinion, was little 
 at pains to read them — in this by so much unwise, 
 that precisely as he thus isolated himself from the 
 best influences of his time, he tended to narrow the
 
 320 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 range and mar the flexibility of his genius. Yet here 
 is something in him pretty boldly pilfered from a 
 Poet, whose debt to him is considerable, yet to whom 
 he would not have greatly liked to consider himself 
 indebted : 
 
 Wordsworth (in 1826). 
 
 ' Yes ! where Love nestles thou 
 canst teach 
 The soul to love the more ; 
 Hearts also shall thy lessons reach 
 That never loved before." 
 
 He who has loved not, here may- 
 learn that lore. 
 And make his heart a spirit ; he 
 who knows [more." 
 
 That tender mystery, will love the 
 
 Not often, as I said, will he be found thus indebted 
 to a modern writer ; but to Milton his obligations for 
 suggestions of the kind are frequent, and have been 
 indicated, as in " The child is Father of the Man," 
 which is merely Milton in "Paradise Regained :" 
 
 "The childhood shows the man. 
 As morning shows the day." 
 
 Two instances only — for brevity's sake- 
 quite indubitable : 
 
 -I select, as 
 
 Wordsworth. 
 
 " She comes — behold ! 
 That figure like a ship with snow- 
 white sail ! 
 Nearer she draws ; a breeze uplifts 
 her veil." 
 
 — The Triad. 
 
 'And angels to his sight appeared, 
 Crowning the glorious hills of 
 
 Paradise ; 
 Or through the groves, gliding 
 
 like viortiiiig mist. 
 Enkindled by the sun." 
 
 — Excursion. 
 
 MlLTO>f. 
 
 " Who is this, etc. 
 That so bedeck'd, ornate, and gay, 
 Comes this way, sailing like a stately 
 
 ship. 
 With all her bravery on, and tackle 
 
 trim. 
 Sails filled, and streamers waving;" 
 — Samson Agonistes. 
 
 " The heavenly bands 
 Down from a sky of jasper lighted 
 
 now 
 In Paradise, and on a hill made halt, 
 A glorious apparition ! 
 
 * * :t: 
 
 The cherubim descended," on the 
 
 ground 
 eliding; meteorous as eveningniist. 
 Risen from a river, o'er the marish 
 glides." 
 
 — Paradise Lost (last page). 
 
 Here we have a very noble instance of an image
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 conquered, not stolen; as glorified in the apt of appro- 
 priation. Wordsworth might be held here to some- 
 what improve on Milton ; whose soberer version is yet 
 felt, for his own purpose, to have subtle grace of pro- 
 priety. In that solemn close and twilight, so to speak, 
 of his mighty Poem, who does not instinctively feel 
 that the gay morning image of Vv^ordsworth — finer as 
 angel-likeness in the abstract — would relatively have 
 been felt an incongruity and splendid irrelevance? 
 And yet, in the interest of imaginative truth more 
 absolute, the Poet, in the epithet " meteorous," per- 
 mits himself an insinuation of the brightness which 
 his nice sense of keeping and harmony forbids him 
 more obtrusively to thrust upon us. 
 
 Desultory illustration of this kind might to almost 
 any length be prosecuted. Enough has perhaps been 
 said to suggest that, in seeking to convict a writer of 
 Plagiarism, care will be very necessary, together with 
 a pretty wide range of close and accurate reading. 
 For the risk must be always considerable that the 
 Poets from whom the things are alleged to be stolen 
 may be proved to be not the lawful proprietors, but 
 really themselves thieves of the property in dispute. 
 In which case, one would think, the gentleman ten- 
 dering the accusation must needs look a little foolish. 
 The writer who thus attacked Smith had plainly some 
 little reading. With a very little more he would have 
 known that frequently his charges were in this way 
 self-stultified. If this can be shown ; if it be proved 
 beyond dispute that, of the articles which Smith was 
 maligned for stealing from certain Poets, these very 
 Poets had commonly themselves pilfered from other 
 Poets, I think it must in fairness be admitted, there 
 was never very much in the charge against him. Let 
 us see, then, a little as to this. 
 
 X
 
 APPEXDIX, 
 
 The lines of Smith being quoted about 
 
 " Mysterious voids, 
 Throbbtng Tiih stars, like pulses," 
 
 it is said they are " dangerously near akin " at once to 
 Keats' 
 
 ■' Edieriai, throbbir.^ like a star," 
 
 and to Wordsworth's 
 
 '^ Galaxy displayed 
 Her fixes, that like mrfsUrious ftises beat," 
 
 One might have fancied it could not but occur to the 
 writer here that — as things which are equal to the 
 same thing are equal to one another — if Smith here 
 was " dangerously near akin " to tico Poets, these tivo 
 Poets must be pretty near akin to each other — as, in 
 fact, they are ; the '' throbbing " star of Keats, and the 
 "beating"' or "pulsing" stars of Wordsworth being, 
 in truth, identical, ^^'he^efore Keats must have taken 
 the beat or throb of his star from ^\'ordswo^h. And 
 when subsequently in " Maud " Mr Tennyson made 
 his stars " Beat to the noiseless music of the night," 
 he also did felony on Wordsworth. I do not see how 
 we can well send Smith here to the pillor)-, without 
 sending such excellent company with him as Messrs 
 Keats and Tennyson. Again — 
 
 Tkxxysox. ' Smith. 
 
 "Tbe leader vild swan in among ,. ** Lods strings of geese came r/^s*^- 
 
 tlie stais I i^ from the stars." 
 
 Would dmatg '«-" 
 
 Now. admitting that this expression clang, as applied 
 to the wings of the larger waterfowl, is fine, bold, 
 peculiar, and so little obWous as not likely to be 
 independently hit uj)on by two poets — what of Bums 
 in his " Lines to Waterfowl on Loch Turit ?" 
 
 " Swiftly se^ on ^io^ai;- wings 
 Other bkes and odier springs.'
 
 APPENDIX. 323 
 
 If Smith stole his "clanging" from Tennyson, by 
 parity of reason, Tennyson must have stolen his from 
 Bums. Both are plagiarists, or neither is.* Farther — 
 
 KEATS. I SmITR. 
 
 "EnikiedtrtiXiisr \ " White fl«4ia/soaL" 
 
 This is somewhat too frivolous; but meaning anjthing, 
 the writer must mean that the word " enskied," as first 
 minted by Keats, is of the nature of exclusive property 
 to him. It is not, however, so ; vide Liuiv, of Isa- 
 bella, in " Measure for Measure," " a thing emkial 
 and sainted." Wherefore, what Smith stole from Keats, 
 Keats must have stolen from Shakespeare. 
 
 * On the very first page of the " Life-Drama" occurs an in- 
 stance, to myself highly corioas, which the minnte diligence of 
 the critic has failed to note — 
 
 Smith. | Bsovmw;. 
 
 " As a torrid sunset boils with gold I " Faster and nwre &st 
 Up to the Zenith. " O'er nigfar 5 brim day boSs at last. 
 
 ' Boils pure gold o'er the dood-cap's 
 
 ibnin.' 
 Opening of P^^ Pasta. 
 
 This seems to me curioiis ; inasmuch as I certainly know that 
 Smith when he wrote this, knew of Browning — afterwards one oi 
 his first favourites — precisely nothing whatever ; his absolutely 
 first acquaintance with him being got from a copy of ' ' Paracekas, " 
 which I remember his fiiend John Nichol one evening presentii^ 
 to him. ^Voat is the explanation ? Both Poets had read Shelley — 
 
 " Sadden the son nprose ; his beans vere lyii^ 
 Like boiling gold aaocKsoibcaxo'. ~ 
 
 and both would seem imawares to have transferred his e&ct <rf 
 ferment fi-om the water to the sky ; finely, yet a little iiregulaiij, 
 and perhaps with some sacrifice of absolute truth ; the sky oi 
 sunset or sunrise, as it runs through its successions of swift and 
 subtle change, beii^ at ereiy particular instant, a distinctly 
 stationary splendour.
 
 324 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 Smith. 
 
 " Thou art a rock ; 
 I a weak wave would break on thee 
 and die." 
 
 Another instance : 
 
 Shelley. 
 
 " A power 
 Girt round with weakness — 
 A breaking billow ; even whilst we 
 
 speak, 
 Is it not broken?" 
 
 Here it is only necessary to cite Wordsworth's 
 
 " Come hither in thine hour of strength, 
 Come "weak as is a breaking wave" 
 
 which Shelley has in the most shameless way appro- 
 priated. Also, in this relation there is a certain per- 
 tinence in a touching passage from Scott's "Journal," 
 written when prostrated by his wife's death, in aid, of 
 other dire griefs: "For myself I scarce know how I 
 feel ; sometimes as firm as the Bass Rock, sometimes 
 as weak as the water that breaks on it." Against an 
 accusation in which Scott and Shelley are thus in- 
 cluded with him, it is not necessary to defend Smith. 
 To proceed : 
 
 LEIGH HUNT. 
 
 " Ghastly prison that eternally 
 Holds its blind visage out to the 
 lone sea." 
 
 SMITH. 
 
 An old fort, like a ghost upon the 
 
 hill, 
 Stare in blank misery through the 
 
 blinding rain." 
 
 This is produced, not so properly as a plagiarism but 
 a "Parallelism" of a class so abject, that "every 
 reader of sense — and more especially every writer of 
 sense — knows the trick of such transformations." 
 Pity that this " wTiter of sense " did not think — the 
 thing being so mere and easy a trick — of giving us 
 some specimens of such on his own account ! Had he 
 done so with good effect, they would have been much 
 the best things produced by him to prove his case. 
 But I think he showed here more sense, than else- 
 where he succeeded in doing, when he declined any
 
 APPENDIX. 325 
 
 such attempt. What, as to this instance, is the exact 
 
 state of tlie matter? Neither Poet is, \n feeling, to be 
 held original ; both are plainly dominated by the genius 
 of Shelley, and have caught for the moment his weird 
 way — morbid but strangely fliscinating — of identifying 
 aspects of Nature with bewildered modes of human 
 emotion. This at a glance will be obvious to every 
 one of ordinary critical intelligence; and besides 
 this identity of feeling, as derived from a common 
 source, there is between the passages no relation 
 whatever. 
 
 Let us go on a little : 
 
 " ' A lofty scorn I dared to shed 
 
 On human passions, hopes and jars. 
 I — standing on the countless dead, 
 And pitied by the countless stars.'" 
 Smith. 
 
 Here is the original in Mrs Browning : 
 
 " ' O man, thy hate with stars o'erhead, 
 Thy love with graves below.'" 
 
 And here from Goethe is the original of Mrs Browning : 
 
 " Solemn before us 
 Veiled the dark portal ! 
 Goal of all mortal ! 
 Stars silent rest o'er its, 
 Graves under its silejit" 
 
 familiar to every one, as quoted by Carlyle in his 
 " Past and Present." If Smith be here a plagiarist, 
 Mrs Browning also is. 
 
 Farther — for there can be no lack of instances : 
 
 SMITH. 
 
 " Chanticleer that struts 
 Among his dames ; faint-challenged 
 
 claps his wings. 
 And crows defiance to the distant 
 
 farms." , farms." 
 
 COVENTRY PATMORE. 
 
 " A shrill defiance of all to arms, 
 Shrieked by the stable cock, re- 
 ceived 
 An angry answer from three
 
 326 APPENDIX. 
 
 Summarily disposed of by Wordsworth's* 
 
 " On tiptoe reared, he strains his clarion throat, 
 Threatened by faintly answering farms remote," 
 
 from which plainly Mr Patmore has with frank auda- 
 city stolen. No sin to Mr Patmore in this ; and what 
 is innocent license in Mr Patmore, cannot be sin in 
 Mr Smith. To go on with what almost gets to be a 
 weary business in the positive surfeit of instances : 
 
 Edgar A. Poe. 
 
 " An angel throng, bewinged, be- 
 
 dight 
 In veils, and drowned ih tears, 
 Sits in a theatre to see 
 A play of hopes and fears. 
 
 * % -w 
 
 The play is the Tragedy ' Man.'" 
 
 •S.MITH. 
 
 " This Pantomime 
 * * ,* 
 
 At which mayhap an angel audience 
 
 sits. 
 Mixing strange comment with its 
 wildness." 
 
 Surely it is not difficult from Shakespeare to convict 
 Poe here — 
 
 " All the world 's a stage, 
 And all the men and women merely players." 
 
 — As YoH Like it. 
 
 * On the same page of Wordsworth, from which this is taken, 
 I find 
 
 " In the rough fern-clad park the herded deer 
 Shook the still twinkling tail and glancing ear," 
 
 which is as nearly as possible Tennyson, in " The Brook " — 
 
 " In copse and fern 
 Twinkled the innumerable ear and tail." 
 
 This I have seen expressly cited as an instance of the true 
 Tennysonian nicety ; yet, as we see, it comes direct from Words- 
 worth ; as by plain suggestion, the 
 
 " Far up the solitary morning smote 
 The peaks of virgin snow," 
 
 in the opening lines of "CEnone," also comes from Wordsworth's 
 fine and peculiar 
 
 "In the broad open eye of the solitary sky." 
 
 But no one, on account of such things, would think the less of 
 Tennyson ; and frankly permitted to him, they cannot be for- 
 bidden to another.
 
 APPENDIX. 327 
 
 One is a little ashamed to have to quote such a thing. 
 Again : 
 
 " Life 's but a walking shadow, a poor player 
 That frets and struts his hour upon the stage, 
 And then is heard no more." — Macbeth. 
 
 And if the " angel throng drowned in tears" be wanted 
 to complete his conviction, here they expressly are in 
 " Measure for Measure" — 
 
 ■' But man, proud man, 
 Drest [for his poor part presumably] in a little brief authority, 
 Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven 
 As make the angels weep." 
 
 Now, on what ground shall we acquit Poe here, and 
 condemn Alexander Smith ? Yet another instance : 
 
 Smith. 
 ' The firth was throbbing with glad 
 y?a/lvj- of light." 
 
 W. Allincham. 
 " The liquid thrills to one gold^a^^." 
 
 The similarity here, of course — the only one — is in the 
 use of the \NOxd\. flake, to express an effect of sunlight 
 on water. This, it is alleged, Smith stole from Mr 
 Allingham. But what of Wordsworth : 
 
 " 'SsUon'gJlakes of radiance on tha tremulous stream." 
 
 Mr Allingham could not the least, if he thought it 
 worth while to try, substantiate a claim here of original 
 and exclusive property. And how should Mr Smith 
 be bound on penalties to be more original than he ? 
 
 Smith. | Tennyson. 
 
 "The drowsy steeples tolled the "The heavy clocks knolling the 
 hour of one. " I drowsy hours." 
 
 One is almost ashamed to treat seriously of such 
 puerilities, for really this is poor piddling ; but as the 
 critic had choice of his weapons, the degradation of 
 meeting him with them seems inevitable, if he is to be 
 met at all. What, then, of Shakespeare Jiere — 
 
 " If the midnight bell 
 Did with his iron tongue and brazen mouth 
 Sound one unto the drowsy race of night."
 
 328 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 
 demned along with him 
 
 Smith. 
 
 " Upon the salt sea must I ever 
 roam ; 
 Wander for ever on the bai~ren 
 /oam." 
 
 Smidi being condemned, clearly Tennyson is con- 
 As also in this other case — 
 
 Tennyson. 
 
 " Most weary seemed the sea, weary 
 the oar, 
 Weary the wandering fields of 
 barrenfoam.'" 
 
 This epithet "barren," as applied to the sea. Smith 
 is accused of stealing from Tennyson ; with equal 
 reason may Tennyson be accused of stealing it from 
 Shelley's 
 
 " For this ye plough 
 The 3arr^« waves of ocean." 
 
 Both are plagiarists, or neither is. 
 
 Again — 
 
 Smith. 
 
 " Draw o'er the world a veil of dewy 
 grey." 
 
 Collins. 
 " Thy fingers draw dewy. 
 The gradual dusky veil." 
 
 But Shelley's 
 
 " Gentle darkness, and the hills and woods 
 Distinctly seen through that dusk airy veil" 
 
 is rather nearer to Collins than Smith is ; and the 
 charge preferred against the one, we must extend to 
 include the other. 
 
 One more specimen, and as it is to be the last, it 
 will be well to make it a good one : 
 
 Smith. 
 
 " Bring me love's honied nightshade, 
 fill it high, 
 I know its madness." 
 
 City Poems. 
 
 The resemblance is somewhat striking. But Mr 
 Tennyson's " Maud " was published in the interval 
 between the "Life-Drama" and the "City Poems;" 
 and the " Life-Drama" Mr Tennyson is known to 
 have read. Here is a passage from it (p. 133) : 
 
 " O God, I 'd be the very floor that bears 
 Such a majestic thing ! now feed, mine eyes. 
 On beauteous poison, Nightsliade, honey-sweet." 
 
 Tennyson. 
 " The cruel madness of love, 
 The honey of poison-flowers " 
 
 Maxid.
 
 APPENDIX. 329 
 
 This, in his " Maud," Mr Tennyson unawares utilises ; 
 and when Smith, in his " City Poems," very closely re- 
 peats himself., he is arraigned as a base plunderer of 
 Tennyson. In all these instances — and they form a 
 very large proportion indeed of the things alleged 
 against Smith not on the very face of them ridiculous 
 — his justification maybe held complete in the crimina- 
 tion under the same rule of the very poets he is said 
 to have plundered ; nor is it, I should say, to be 
 doubted that if others, who read and remember under 
 conditions of taste and associati^on different from 
 mine, were called on for their contributions, the list 
 might be indefinitely extended, so as to neutralise 
 in the same way very nearly all the main items of 
 the charge. And perhaps the helpless futility of it 
 could scarce in any way be more conclusively shown. 
 Nothing being proved against Smith more than is also 
 proved against these other Poets whose property he 
 is accused of making free with, wherein is he to be 
 held in the matter any whit more culpable than they? 
 Before quitting the subject, I am almost obliged to 
 remark on the oddity of this gentleman's notions as to 
 what may constitute an almost absolute verbal identity 
 between two passages of Poetry. The following lines 
 from Smith are quoted : 
 
 " The rain which I had heard so often weep 
 Alone, within the middle of the night, 
 Like a poor, beaten, and despisfid child, 
 That has been thrust out from its father's door." 
 
 And they are thus summarily set aside — " Copied 
 from Coleridge almost word for word !" The writer 
 did not care to quote the passage of Coleridge, from 
 which Smith, according to him, " almost word for 
 word copied." I will now do so. Smith's passage 
 refers to the weeping of the Rain. That of Coleridge 
 is part of a \y\\(}ifa7itasia, in which the " mad Lutanist,"
 
 330 APPENDIX. 
 
 the Wind is exhibited in various functions. Ha\'ing 
 told several other tales, it now is supposed to tell 
 
 "A tal« of less affright. 
 And temper'd with ddigfat. 
 As Onrav's self had fiamed the tender lay ; 
 Tis of a little ckOd, 
 Upooa kMnesome vikL 
 
 Not fax firom bocne, bat she hath lost her way : 
 And DOW moans low, in bitter grief and fear. 
 And DOW screams load, and hopes to make her mother hear." 
 
 — Dejtctwm — Am Ode. 
 
 The reader will be good enough to take my word for 
 it that this is the c>«/v passage in Coleridge to which, 
 by any possibility' reference can be intended. And 
 what of Smith, in his Unes, ha\-ing " copied it almost 
 word for word?' The verbal identit)- asserted ab- 
 solutely resolves itseh" into this — that the word chiU 
 is to be found in both passages. In a case of this 
 kind it would be idle to mince ones terms. AMiile 
 willing to suppose a general bonajiiii's in the >vriter, I 
 not the less boldly assert, what to ever}- reader must 
 be ob\"ious, that /i<!^re he was, with full knowledge, 
 merely trading on the presumed ignorance of his 
 pubUc. The question, be it obser\ed, is not h^re as 
 to possible suggest Uyn, but as to a distinctly asserted 
 *^ copying oi a passage almost word for ward." And 
 even as to any " suggestion " of the one by the other 
 passage, the inference seems surely of the slightest 
 
 For farther conWction to the reader, I had prepared 
 a list of the Plagiarisms precisely such as those here 
 cited against Smith — the really weighty- ones, that is, 
 not the mass of mere rubbish amid which they were 
 imbedded — which, simply as fruit of one person's never 
 more than merely desultory' reading of him, could be 
 brought home to a writer of genius so high, peculiar, 
 and original as Shelley ; but I find it extends to such 
 length that 1 must needs exclude it. And after all, if 
 given — though in itself perhaps curious more or less —
 
 APPENDIX. 331 
 
 it could scarce have had real importance in regard of 
 the matter in hand. It is already sufficiently shown — 
 and it did not need to be sho^\-n except for behoof of 
 people entirely uninstructed — that this imconscious 
 reproduction of material in reading assimilated, is 
 simply more or less ine\atable to every poet who has 
 read in the least wndely. It is sufficiently knowTi, 
 moreover, that if there be sin in it, some of our 
 greatest Poets must be held the chief of sinnei3. 
 Byron, for instance (whom I venture to think some- 
 thing of a Poet, however, nowadays, creatures whom 
 he could have eaten by the dozen to breakfast, think 
 it clever to express contempt for him), was one of the 
 most audacious pirates who ever roamed the high 
 seas of literature ; and against Shelley, as I said, 
 whose sins in this kind are less suspected, a consider- 
 able case can be made out How, then, can we 
 legitimately impeach any one Poet for the sin of 
 which all are guilty? All, it may be said, are not 
 equaHy guilty ; but the thing at all permitted as inno- 
 cent, where is the line to be drawn, on the one side 
 of which is innocence or permitted laxit}", on the other 
 guilt or unpermitted ? Xo such line can possibly be 
 drawn ; and nothing can be more ridiculous than to 
 say — to Wordsworth we excuse his Plagiarisms ; there 
 are only two of them — Shell e}-, with his three or four, 
 also we excuse — here is BjTon with his five or six ; 
 him also we pass — Alexander Smith is guilt}" of seven 
 or eight; on this sole ground, dowTi with him as 
 Plagiarist and not Poet. This is, on the face of it, 
 arbitran,', and merely irrational The sole question 
 must in every such case be — is this stuff before us 
 Poetry l If so, we may be sure no one not a Poet 
 could have written it, with the whole of English 
 literature to help him in this way of pillage and sug- 
 gestion ; and if admitted Poetr}-, it will never, as such.
 
 332 APPENDIX. 
 
 be discredited by being shown to contain here and 
 there a thought or an image inadvertently appro- 
 priated from other writers. Nevertheless, it is well 
 and of interest that such things, when they occur, 
 should sharply be pointed out. In the "Life-Drama" 
 they occur in such numbers, that had the critic to 
 whom I have been alluding been at all a proficient in 
 his business, he might readily have made out against 
 Smith a considerably stronger case. And had he done 
 so, his inference from it in favour of himself as having 
 demolished Smith's claims as a Poet would no whit 
 the less have been an absurd one. But had what he 
 essentially did been a little better done, and done in 
 the right spirit, as without this ridiculous inference, 
 there was no harm in his doing it ; and, indeed, it 
 would have been a clearly good and useful thing to 
 do. Done as it was, it was not only useless, but 
 mischievous, at once to the Poet and the Public, to 
 whose mere ignorance its appeal was made. The 
 sins — so call them — of the " Life-Drama" in this kind, 
 are sufficiently accounted for and excused, as result 
 of youth, a somewhat turbulent course of wide and 
 half-mastered poetical reading, and a memory, as I 
 have before called it, at once tenacious and treacher- 
 ous. Neither of his after volumes lie open to the 
 same objection in nearly the same degi'ee, or indeed 
 in any degree the least worthy to be specially re- 
 marked upon. 
 
 Smith's Poetry admitted as such, and he himself 
 therein admitted as Poet, there may yet very well be 
 question of the claims supposed made for him by 
 some of his more ardent admirers. Poet ! it may be 
 said ; Poetry ! admitted ; but how much, and in what 
 sense. Poetry, as guarantee of Poet ? Poetry may be 
 very genuine, and, as such, even delightful, yet, as 
 merely imitative, as distinct from original poetry, and
 
 APPENDIX. m 
 
 no product of the man's clearly distinct individuality, 
 it may yet be fairly set aside as naught. The music 
 he makes is pleasant, — it may be said, — but he is 
 really no more than a pipe which Tennyson or 
 some other Poet " commands to utterance of har- 
 mony." And of Smith this is the view by some 
 critics latterly taken. While admitting that some- 
 thing is to be said for it, I do not admit it as a cor- 
 rect or conclusive judgment of the whole matter. 
 A man might very well be an original, and even 
 a gnat original Poet, though his verse should include 
 an imitative element. As notably Byron,* of whom 
 
 * The truth is, that in Byron's later poetiy — most notably in the 
 Third Canto of " Childe Harold" — the imitation — and at times 
 something more — of Wordsworth, is such as would have com- 
 promised the claim to originality of any less potent and versatile 
 spirit than he. In Shelley also may be traced imitative elements 
 — a colouring influence — from Wordsworth almost continuously 
 — from Byron at times, and less distinctly. He himself was well 
 aware of this — vide Prefaces to the " Revolt of Islam" and "Pro- 
 metheus," in which he wisely says that if a man could keep himself 
 free from the influence of men of genius, his contemporaries, it 
 would be foolish in him to do so — as Wordsworth unquestionably 
 tried to do, entirely, I must think, to his detriment. An ' ' imi- 
 tative element " in his verse — which after all may mean no more 
 than that, as himself a child of his Time, he cannot be divorced 
 in feeling from those who are its highest representatives — will 
 thus never, in itself, distinctly discredit any poet. The ques- 
 tion of proportion and degree, however, not the less remains to 
 be discussed ; and in regard erf Smith it is, I think, a perfectly 
 fair subject of discussion. Had the man still lived, sxxch a 
 discussion, if started, might have had some interest for me. 
 Seeing he is dead, if vehemently debated to-morrow, it could 
 not have much, if any. One single word of it and no more. 
 The "imitative element" in him is chiefly to be noted in his 
 first work, the "Life-Drama," which includes frank imita- 
 tion of every poet with whom he was familiar — of Keats, 
 Tennyson, Bailey, Wordsworth, Byron, and specially — though 
 this and justly, we scarcely stigmatise as imitation — of Shake- 
 speare and the Elizabethans. But if there was nothing in it but
 
 334 APPENDIX. 
 
 Coleridge said that he was like the mocking-bird, which 
 can imitate every songster of the grove, and has yet a 
 sweet note of its own. This " note of his own" is, me 
 judice, throughout to be caught in Smith, interfused in 
 the admitted imitation. Is it to such an extent inter- 
 fused as to save his Poetry, as a whole, from being 
 disposed of as imitative? My own opinion, which 
 cannot be of the least importance, would distinctly be 
 given in the affirmative. Again, admitting his Poetry 
 in a sufficient sense original, or his own, is there in it 
 such a forceful vitality as might possibly suffice to main- 
 tain it in "the struggle for existence" which goes on 
 among poems as elsewhere ? Such questions as these 
 intelligent people might be supposed to discuss, in 
 regard of Smith, or of another poet. That other ques- 
 tion of " Plagiarism " will never be discussed at all — 
 except to be set aside with contempt — among men of 
 any intelligence and also of competent knowledge. It 
 is not for readers of that class, I have thought it 
 might be well to discuss it a little here. But con- 
 sidering the impression which, undoubtedly with the 
 Public, was produced by the attack in question, it 
 seems reasonable to suppose there must be another 
 class of readers, to whom the remarks I have ventured 
 to make on the subject — supposing them to give, as I 
 hope they do, the just rationale of the matter — may 
 more or less be found of service. 
 
 such imitation — no clear individual distinctive ' ' note of the Poet's 
 own" — how enormous was the folly of the general British public 
 (critics included) in giving it the reception they did as the work 
 of a great ' ' New Poet " in esse, and in fosse who could tell what ? 
 So enormous was the folly, as to discredit for evennore the 
 verdict of the British public and Critics, as given on any poet 
 whatever, either in applause or censure.
 
 Just Published, Crown 8vo, Cloth Extra, Price 6j., 
 
 WAYSIDE THOUGHTS OF A PROEESSOE : 
 
 BEING A SERIES OF 
 
 DESULTORY ESSAYS ON EDUCATION. 
 
 Bv D'ARCY WENTWORTH THOMPSON, 
 
 Professor of Greek, Queen's College, Galway ; Author of " Day Dreams of a 
 Schoolmaster," " Sales Attici," etc., etc. 
 
 glontents. 
 
 Introductory. 
 
 School Memories, 
 
 College Memories. 
 
 A Teacher's Experiences. 
 
 Our Home Civilisation, 
 
 What is a Schoolmaster? 
 
 Youth and College, 
 
 ^&^ 
 
 Boyhood and School. 
 Childhood and the Nursery. 
 Girlhood, Womanhood, and 
 
 Home. 
 All Work and no Play. 
 Manhood and the World. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS, 
 
 London Review. 
 
 " Speaking upon female education, the author says much that 
 is well deserving of consideration ; and at a time like the present, 
 when so much is being said and written upon the position which 
 woman holds in the community, and the progress that is being 
 made in the efforts to improve that position, his remarks cannot 
 fail to be read with interest," 
 
 Morning Star. 
 
 " Professor D'Arcy Thompson is a charming essayist 
 
 * Wayside Thoughts ' may be commended to instructors of every 
 grade, from the college down to the mistress of an infant school. 
 All will find sound advice and healthy criticism, and none need 
 fear pedantiy or obscurity." 
 
 The Globe. 
 
 "A series of essays on education, vigorous in their tone, and 
 practical in their aim. The manner in which the author has 
 dealt with his subject shows an intimate acquaintance with its 
 
 various bearings As a contribution to the general stock 
 
 of information necessary to elucidate the great question, this 
 work will be welcomed and valued."
 
 Just Published, Crown %vo. Cloth Extra, Price 5 j. , and 
 may be had at all Libraries, 
 
 A BOOK ABOUT DOMINIES: 
 
 BEING THE 
 
 REFLECTIONS AND RECOLLECTIONS OF A 
 MEMBER OF THE PROFESSION. 
 
 OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 
 
 Spectator. 
 
 ' ' This is a manly, earnest book. The author describes in a 
 series of essays the life and work of a schoolmaster ; and as he 
 has lived that life, and done that work from deliberate choice, 
 his story is worth hearing. Why does the writer of a book so 
 honest and thoughtful as this about dominies, come before the 
 public anonymously ? Let us hope that a second edition will ere 
 long be called for, and that thus an opportunity may be afforded 
 of correcting this mistake." 
 
 Athenseiun. 
 
 " The author is no Sabbatarian, and does not set a high value 
 upon either sermons or social essays. Yet he writes on religious 
 subjects with a genuine earnestness that reminds one of Dr 
 Arnold, whose vigorous manliness of character he seems to 
 possess in no small degree. 
 
 " He is light-hearted and cheeiy, perhaps a little too fond of 
 a sort of slangy phraseology, but can be grave and even pathetic 
 at times, while he is often eloquent and never dull — altogether a 
 very lively and agreeable talker. Our author gives a graphic 
 account of how he became a dominie, the difficulties and vexa- 
 tions to which the dominie is subject, and the characters of some 
 of his pupils, both past and present. He has also an amusing 
 chapter on other dominies, several varieties of whom he sketches 
 with vivid force, both as they are represented in works of fiction 
 and as he has found them in actual life. On a number of other 
 subjects, more or less connected with his personal history and 
 profession, he speaks in such a way as to excite interest and com- 
 mand respect. " 
 
 Imperial Review. 
 
 " This is a genial, well- written book, worth reading both by 
 parents and boys ; refreshing, too, from its good, old-fashioned 
 spirit. If all teachers would form as high an ideal as he has 
 formed, and would act upon it, the world would sooner get 
 better than it is. , 
 
 EDINBURGH : W. P. NIMMO. 
 
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